Explosions feedback

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Tac said:

Yes knowing which is a fireship would be helpful I guess, problem with that logic is it doesn’t have to be a fireship just a ship that is on fire.

Also shooting a ship on fire makes sense to increase the spread of the fire and cause more chaos making it more likely to explode,but I ‘m referring to the amount of damage caused and the range the explosion reaches I still think it’s above the sweet spot.

i guess we will see if more PBs as an example are decided by this strategy.

Buckets will make impossible to explode the standard non-fire ship. The crew damage was drastically reduced in last patch and brace effectiveness was almost doubled. Perhaps shockwave distance should be reduced a bit.

[Anolytic]

Fireships:

First of all, let's separate between fireships and exploding ships. 

1 month-2 months ago, explosions were mostly alright. A good explosion could do serious damage, enough to cripple a fleet if quickly seized upon, but in a moving fight they were hard to pull off. There were some issues, that were F11'd many times. Ships would frequently explode without warning. Fireshocks were supposed to be the warning, but more often than not, ships would explode directly from just being on fire. Sometimes, ships would even explode directly, without even catching on fire first. This happened to me once in San Juan.

One could argue about the frequency of this occurring (it was way too often), but it's somewhat historical - if not the best gameplay - to get randomly blown up without warning from a stray cannonball igniting the magazine. 

Since the changes to explosions the situation is completely different. A "fireship" (exploding ship) doesn't have to be particularly accurate. It can blow up far from the enemy fleet and still devastate it. With the "great" combination of captured NPC 1st rates it is a tactic without risk or cost whatsoever. And it has no counter. "The only winning move is not to play".

I am no expert, and I don't have access to the historical records directly, but I know enough that 1st rates were never used as fireships. Moreover, gunpowder was an expensive resource and even if they could have packed every deck of a 1st rate with gunpowder, we would not see the kind of nuclear explosions we now see in-game.

One of the most spectacular historical 1st rate explosions in history was the destruction of Orient. 

Wikipedia says about this explosion:

 

Quote

The concussion of the blast was powerful enough to rip open the seams of the nearest ships

Falling wreckage started fires on Swiftsure, Alexander, and Franklin, although in each case teams of sailors with water buckets succeeded in extinguishing the flames,

Hundreds of men dove into the sea to escape the flames, but fewer than 100 survived the blast.

For ten minutes after the explosion there was no firing; sailors from both sides were either too shocked by the blast or desperately extinguishing fires aboard their own ships to continue the fight.

There is:

Nearby ships took hull damage (ripped seams) - but not to the point of sinking.

No mention of crew killed on other ships from the blast - after all they are well covered by the solid hulls of their own ships.

No mention of masts falling on other ships - presumably sails were ripped.

Other ships caught fire from falling debris.

Other ships got "crew shocked" by the blast.

If we want to model explosions in-game on this, here's how I propose:

Crew shock to all ships in the battle after an explosion, but longer crew-shock to ships within short distance from the blast. I.e 15 seconds for all ships and 2-3 minute crew shock for ships within say 500 meters.

Crew loss only on ships immediately near. I.e up to 500 crew lost on ships that are literally touching the exploding ship. No crew loss on ships more than 100 meters away from the explosion.

Fires, fires everywhere. All ships within say 500 meters should catch up to multiple fires, simulating falling debris. Fires that have to be fought, and could be dangerous, but which especially a ship in brace should be well prepared to handle. Fires spreading should be the real danger from any exploding ship - or any fireship really.

Masts should fall (if at all) only on ships in immediate vicinity to the blast. And then no more than middle sections. Only on ships within 250 meters max. And if you want to make it somewhat realistic, only ships with their sails fully raised, not depowered, and perpendicular to the direction of the blast should be susceptible to loose mast sections. Otherwise the force of the explosion would not catch the sails. 

Sail damage, as in ripped sails, on ships close to the blast. Sail damage should be up to 50% on the closest ships, and reach no more than 400 meters away. Sail damage should however be increased again for ships on fire. This goes especially for the fireships themselves, but also for ships catching fire from falling debris after an explosion.

Hull damage to show how ships seams were ripped. Maybe manifesting as structure damage or som 20-30% damage to hulls, depending on proximity and angle.

----------------------

As a whole, fireships themselves and fireship fittings should be changed to focus more on fires and less on explosions. They are after all named fireships, not explosive ships.

The real danger of a fireship, should be spreading fires to other, adjacent ships. Explosions should be rarer, more chancy, and significantly less potent. 

There should be no fireship fittings above 5th rates. Possibly 4th rates. It is just not historical. 

And the purpose of a fireship should be to drive close to enemy ships and spread multiple, significant fires, to their hull and sails alike. Fires that would be crippling, do sail damage and take up big numbers of crew in firefighting, leaving the ships vulnerable. 

A fireship should have an increased radius at which fires spread, so that it would not need to completely touch/hug an enemy (or friendly) ship to spread fire to it, but the more it hugged a ship, the more severely the fire would spread to the next ship.

[Elric]

 

Here is an example from today of the extreme nature of fireship damage.  100% of the crew killed, yet in this case very little sail and mast damage.  When so many players (some of both sides) are instantly eliminated from battles, it doesn't help the game.   While it may technically be possible to kill 100% of the crew on a ship, you would expect some crew members to survive - and the ship to sustain much more physical damage.

This mechanic needs to be revised and moderated immediately if you want players to continue playing.

[Mouth of Sauron]

Basically the game is currently unplayable in large form battles.  Opposing side just has to use some captured 1st rates to neutralize a fleet with little to no risk.  Attacking side assumes all of the risk with PB quality ships.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Mouth of Sauron

[admin]

43 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

Fireships:

First of all, let's separate between fireships and exploding ships. 

1 month-2 months ago, explosions were mostly alright. A good explosion could do serious damage, enough to cripple a fleet if quickly seized upon, but in a moving fight they were hard to pull off. There were some issues, that were F11'd many times. Ships would frequently explode without warning. Fireshocks were supposed to be the warning, but more often than not, ships would explode directly from just being on fire. Sometimes, ships would even explode directly, without even catching on fire first. This happened to me once in San Juan.

 

Lets get some trivia out to public

Fire and Fire shock history in Naval Action

• Fire has the radius
  • Once this radius reaches the sails they burn
  • Once this radius reaches the magazine it explodes
  • Fire damages internal structure and hull (but not a lot initially)
• Crew has ability to firefight
  • Every meter of fire requires crew
  • If you have less crew than fire requires it starts growing faster
  • Full crew can always put out any fire unless they are under fire or explode
• You can increase the size of the fire by firing into the burning ship. This was done by the royal navy consistently against the french. 
• If fire size grows crew requirement goes up
  • old system - more crew is not required
  • new system - more crew required - as bigger the fire bigger is complexity
• Ship can go into fire shock - which means that when the fire reaches certain size crew drops everything and starts working on fire only (for survival reasons) - fire shock can only happen when the fire reaches a certain size
  • Fire shock is just an indication of size of fire
    • When we noticed that player mistakenly connect fire shock with explosions we reworked it and greatly increased the size of fire shock. Previously it was like 1/20 of the ship length, now its 1/8
    • Explosions were never connected to fire shock. As a result people started seeing explosions with no indication. Which happened when fire reached the magazine (starting near it). It was exaggerated under fire. 
    • Fire shocks were never the warning. 

In the old systems you mention.
Fire shock was too small and crew required to fire fight was too small and thats why large ships exploded very rarely.
There were never warnings on explosions. People thought there were but there were not. If you fire starts near magazine and reaches it you can explode IMMEDIATELY without even a fire icon. 

As a result we got a lot of questions on this and this system was changed last week 

• Now you cannot explode immediately
• Now your ship can only explode on fireshock and have been on fireshock for 15 seconds (enough for other ships to press brace) 
• Fire can reach the magazine immediately but you wont explode until everyone sees the fireshock visual indication.
• Fire shock is a warning now (unlike before)

....

The origin of fire buff.

• Some might have been happy with the fires and explosions, but some were not. We received a lot of reports and complaints that explosions were not strong enough. Main complain they stopped dropping masts and top sections and they did not kill enough crew..
• We also witnessed that people did not even brace before explosions on videos in large battles and shrugged off exploding ships and ships on fire as nuisance, not as dangerous event. 
• We do not ships explosions will not have such effect if fleets keep stations and lines. Of course you all want to stay together. Explosions

You asked in another topic - is it testing. No and yes. We want continue to push damage model to the state where it will resemble our mental model of perfect age of sail combat. We might overtweak it here and there.  But in general dangerous explosions and fire discipline and station keeping were less required before than now. We like it more now.. Maybe the distance is bigger than it should be - in code its 400m. very reasonable for the flat sea shockwave. 

Forthcoming

All fireship fittings will have -70% penalty to crew next week
We will slightly reduce the range of explosions
But they will remain deadly because we like it, because we sell OUR version of the mental model of perfect age of sail combat. This is how we like it. 
 

Current workaround

• Get buckets. Replace cartagena or navy hull with buckets and you save 5 first rates. If you all get buckets you will never get on fire.
• Keep a proper line - bow to stern - 100 m away. Fire ship wont be so effective. 
  
  
  
  PS complaints about first rate fire ships are not accepted - its a game and players can do what they want with ships they captured. first rates did explode for devastating effect. If you give Orient examples give distances too. There were no ships in the 500m vicinity to it. 

 

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Liman said:

That is all well and good, but we are now having 1st rates that do brace losing all masts, 1k+ crew

Masts yes. Crew no. You cant lose 1000+ crew if you are on brace. 

[Never]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

Masts yes. Crew no. You cant lose 1000+ crew if you are on brace. 

But a second rate losing 900 crew while not bracing and sailing 300 meters or so away from an explosion is still way too much. I do not believe there is any historical reference to such a thing ever happening. All crew on the top deck could die/be injured but why would the crew below decks be killed outright? A long crew shock would make a lot more sense. 

Instead of masts being outright blown off, all sails could catch fire. Ships closer to the explosion get multiple fires. 

Today it favored us but honestly it's rather silly, that people are just exploding on purpose cause it's so much more effective than actually using their 1st rate to fight. Just explode and you can kill 3 ships. 

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Never said:

But a second rate losing 900 crew while not bracing and sailing 300 meters or so away from an explosion is still way too much.

Thats the point. Who considers too much, too much. To much compared to before? Yes. 
Too much considered 50 tons of explosives exploding? 

44gun frigate carried 15 tons of gunpowder in 1756. 15 TONS OF EXPLOSIVE

 

[admin]

4 minutes ago, Liman said:

I can confirm, this is to much.

Also more angling of sails as Anolitic said before to reduce impact. Also sails rather than masts seems more accurate (assuming sails are not square on to the blast).

https://www.un.org/disarmament/un-saferguard/explosion-danger-area/

[Never]

13 minutes ago, admin said:

Thats the point. Who considers too much, too much. To much compared to before? Yes. 
Too much considered 50 tons of explosives exploding? 

44gun frigate carried 15 tons of gunpowder in 1756. 15 TONS OF EXPLOSIVE

 

Yes true but the physics due to the location of the explosion would affect it's outgoing force. All the explosives are in the stores of the ship, which is cocooned by the armored hull. The explosion would likely be upwards in the direction of least resistance, not sideways. We have to consider it's not an explosion in the open and the crew affected is also not in the open. There's 2 hulls, armored hulls made to stop canon balls in the way of the force of that explosion. 

But again, even when the 1st rate Orient exploded it did not kill all crew in any of the other ships in that battle. It didn't even kill a lot of crew in any of the ships in the battle. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Never

[admin]

11 minutes ago, Never said:

 

But again, even when the 1st rate Orient exploded it did not kill all crew in any of the other ships in that battle. It didn't even kill a lot of crew in any of the ships in the battle. 

We replied to this above.. there was no ships closer than 400-500 meters to it.  And everyone was on brace.

Size of the powder magazine was never reviewed before and weight of gunpowder is high for old style explosions. It was more like farting than exploding

Here are 2 tables
Source FEMA 426 - Risks during terrorists attacks against buildings

50 tons is 100,000 lb 
100000 lb demolishes concrete at 100 ft. 
 

 

[erelkivtuadrater]

4 minutes ago, Liman said:

 

Also im no expert but im going with age of sail quality gunpowder and modern day military munitions are not exactly comparable. Also the "safe distance" is not really a measure. Safe for where you would want to stand is one thing, safe for your warship whos masts are built to withstand huge amounts of force is another. Your calculator doesnt help this argument one way or another.

Also we can argue this all day every day but this is not making anyone happy. I have been on the winning side of most fireships today but i still realise this is not a good thing in the current state. The playerbase is not going to enjoy this when it happens to them and currently it is happening more and more as people realise how OP it is.
 

HMS victory had 780 barrels of gunpowder shared between 3 magazines, one barrel weighted in at 45kg aka 35000 kg of Black Powder. If ignited it had the force equal to 47 tons of TNT.

Now this is a video of 50 tons tnt that explodes

 

[Tiedemann]

From what I experienced today I agree that we take way to much crew damage in general from fire-ships. It is very unrealistic to take a lot of crew damage at what I consider to be long distance, 200-300 meters. If your in "Brace" at that distance the crew loss should minimal/zero.
Not sure how much RNG is involved in crew damage, but imo brace should flat out guarantee that you keep at least 50% of your current crew at close range and then increase up to 100% at 200 meters. 

I like sail/mast damage a lot, but I have never noticed taking hp damage from a fire ship.. Looking forward to the tweaking of this mechanic  

[Malcolm3]

13 minutes ago, admin said:

44gun frigate carried 15 tons of gunpowder in 1756. 15 TONS OF EXPLOSIVE

1. 44-gun ship in 1756 is not a frigate, but 2-decker usually

2. Action of 7th March of 1778 between 32-gun frigate Randolph and 64-gun 3rd rate Yarmouth. Fought on such close range that they even tossed grenades to each other. When Randolph exploded, sails and rigging on Yarmouth was badly damaged (she lost bowspit and topmasts), but losses were only 5 men dead and 12 wounded for the whole action. The main danger from explosion was falling debris.

[Never]

@admin I understand your points, but you yourself made the post saying you did no want fireships becoming the top way to easily win battles. Or am I wrong in that?

At the moment, as they are now, exploding ships/fireships continue to be the best and easiest way to win large fleet battles. 

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Liman said:

I give up. if you want to use that video as how to build your fire ships then im not leaving port any more.
 

You give up too easily. 

This is a discussion topic - not a blame topic or a fighting pit. I am sick and tired of outraged people running around shouting THE END IS COMING after every change they do not like or understand. Come and explain what you need and what you dont need.

[Elric]

admin, I don't see any of the players in this conversation supporting how the exploding ship mechanic works today.

When the majority of players on both the defending and attacking side in the battle today all seem to agree the results are far too extreme, you really should take notice.

[Malcolm3]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

Here are 2 tables
Source FEMA 426 - Risks during terrorists attacks against buildings

First, blast (both blast wave and pressure) must destroy sturdy oak timbers of the exploding ship, then it must penetrate sturdy oak planking covering men working on gundecks of the ship 100-200 m away.

[North]

Not to be rude, but most of the experienced RvR community and the hard core players that keep this game running has now raised there concern about this. This goes for players on both sides of the war/battle.

Think this feature need to be nerfed back alot and rather turn og up slightly until the sweetspot is achived.

Better to to slightly increase on how it was, then go to max then try to fix it. If this keeps going players Will loose intrest for big ship RvR or RvR all toghter. As one of the organiser for RvR within Russia i will most likly stop it, because it is not worth loosing all those good 1st rates to a green ocean exploding.

 

@admin please listen to the constuctiv critism you get her.

You wanted us to be more helpful and now we try, please show us that it works.

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by North

[Never]

13 minutes ago, erelkivtuadrater said:

HMS victory had 780 barrels of gunpowder shared between 3 magazines, one barrel weighted in at 45kg aka 35000 kg of Black Powder. If ignited it had the force equal to 47 tons of TNT.

Now this is a video of 50 tons tnt that explodes

 

This can't be used to compare directly though; the explosives are suspended in the air. We would need something were the explosives are underground perhaps, to simulate the conditions of a wooden armored hull and see it effects on something at comparable distances from what is used in game. Plus consider whatever is affected would also have to be behind some at least basic level of protection to simulate the other ship.

Also notice the trees didn't get blown to pieces or ripped out of the ground, like our masts do. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Never

[erelkivtuadrater]

4 minutes ago, Liman said:

I give up. if you want to use that video as how to build your fire ships then im not leaving port any more.

Bottom line, we are not enjoy this, Your paying customers

its just a point that the explosions might not be that far away from reality. Maybe it would be easier to take note of if there was some kind of shockwave along the water, and that it creates a big splash around the ship not only the bright explosion?

Another thing about the fireships are also that the crew that dies due to this costs nothing so a  player is much better of suiciding his own crew and dismantle enemy ships other then trying to fight the fire.

Maybe this is something that should be looked into if there was a way to tell if the explosion is self proclaimed or if it happened due to enemy firing

[Shocktrooper Basteyy]

Here is my opinion to it.
I need to admit that I kinda love it. It opens up new tactics, as sending a fireship into the enemy fleet. So actually ships/fleets with less skill can win battles. I think it's more of a balance of the "overpowered" teams.

What I would change :

Decrease the mast damage. It's just too overpowered to have one explosion and the ships within 500m Range get fully demasted (Port au Prince PB).
 
If the fireship is close to enemy ships (for example. hugging) then it should get more Damage to hull, as well as to Crew. If you are not within 100m Range you shouldn't get too much hull damage, but the hull damage to the ships beneath it should be increased.

The further the ships are the more dramatically it should do less damage. (Les Cayes) Reverse was about 1000m away and lost 600 Crew. As well as to make it more historical.

Shocktrooper Basteyy, FC of the last fireship battles

[Knuddel]

Physik of Explosions and use of Fireships in that Time:

First of all Blackpowder needs to be compressed to Explode. 

Secound Powderchaimbers are ALWAYS! below the waterline.

Leads to: A ship will not explode like this. The Detonation if there is one by Accsident or even by will ís below the watersurface. What means that the Explosion is going into the air. 

So next point Fireships where Ships mostly Fisherboats  and small Ships which where taken away from fishers and small transportvessels. They where stacked not with Powder but with Oil and Wood to make it burn. When a burning ship is driving by the Sails catch fire ans if the Fireship hits a target there will not be any kind of explosion. Just fire. And Final point is: In that century nearly all guys beliefed in God and to commit suicide was a Deathsin. So they would never catch a Place in Heaven. 

Yes it is true that some ships exploded by Accsidens, but: Never by will of the Crew on it. 

Suggestion caurse some guys likes fire ships: the last minte bevor explosion no controle over the Vessel.

 

LIke with captured Ai 1 rds like now it makes the game for me not longer enjoyable. 

Fireships where just burning. Blackpowder wasnt that effectiv and Suicide would no one commit. So Change please something,  like this the maximum ship i will take out of port is a Wasa. Easy to replace and when something went wront, i can still blow it up and kill several enemys... but why building, i can just capture some...  I dont think that this Meta is going to serve the Gameplay. 

[Never]

2 minutes ago, Shocktrooper Basteyy said:

Here is my opinion to it.
I need to admit that I kinda love it. It opens up new tactics, as sending a fireship into the enemy fleet. So actually ships/fleets with less skill can win battles. I think it's more of a balance of the "overpowered" teams.
 

I also have to say that I like it cause it's a change from the same battles we've had since I started playing over a year ago or more. It just requires a few tweaks. 

[TheDread]

Discussion of explosion damage and range aside...  it seems to me the gamebreaking part of this is that explosions are too easy to make happen intentionally.   It was not a common tactic to simply stop fighting the fire for the purpose of killing yourself and anyone nearby.   Sure, a ship that was beyond saving may have tried to foul itself with a foe, but intentional explosion was pretty damned rare.   Rare enough that it wouldn't be immersion breaking to just remove it from the game.  Buckets protect your ship from YOUR fire.   They don't do anything to protect you from someone ELSE'S explosion.  (Can we put the buckets over our heads before the explosion?  :P)

A couple of suggestions for how to improve it:

1.   just plain take away the #8 button.  I think it would be fine if the crew acted out of self preservation and just always did their best to save the ship.   As crew is required to keep the ship afloat or put out fires, other  tasks become harder to accomplish. 

2.    If we want to keep an intentional fireship option -  Add an abandon ship command!    Instead of having MORE crew available for sailing and gunnery because you've stopped fighting the fire...  we should have less because, well, the  ship is on fire.   The only way to stop fighting a fire ought to be to order the crew to jump overboard.  Crew number starts plummeting...  sailing and gunnery become virtually impossible.   This would keep the fireship captain from being able to continue to steer into the enemy fleet with total efficiency...   And that would be great coupled with the next idea - 

3.  Fire should be bad for your boat.  Like...  really bad for your boat.   It should be causing structure and sail damage, and that damage should escalate as the fire grows.  This makes people who DON'T want to be on fire stop and deal with it.  And it makes people who do want to blow up plan much more carefully, since the hull and sail damage will bring the ship to a halt fairly rapidly.  

Some combination of 2 and 3 would leave fireships in the game as a playable  option, while greatly increasing the skill required to use them and creating options to counter them.