Explosions feedback

[Tac]

1 minute ago, Never said:

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. 

It isn't a battle like this,it's a massacre.

What makes it seem even worse than it is, is the fact of seasoned woods being such a grind who's is gonna put all the effort in building a ship with all the man hours for it to be lost in literally 15 seconds.

[z4ys]

Current meta are/were blob fights (for references watch any portbattle of rediii) This meta isnt working anymore. And just like admin wrote

1 hour ago, admin said:

Keep a proper line - bow to stern - 100 m away. Fire ship wont be so effective.

Get your spacing right. Portbattle leaders have to adept and overcome.

Finally fires and explosions are back and matter and  I like it. But I do think most dmg due to explosions will be rigging dmg. Only in the vicinity of the explosion crew will die due to blast overpressure waves (lung dmg). Further away falling rigging +  fragmentation will cause casualties, but not that much that a whole ship will be decrewed.

@admin shouldnt falling masts cause some crew dmg in general?

[Malcolm3]

Besides great work on Fireships by Peter Kirsch (obtainable via various sites) you can find some useful info here:

https://nautarch.tamu.edu/Theses/pdf-files/Coggeshall-MA1997.pdf

3 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Finally fires and explosions are back and matter and  I like it. But I do think most dmg due to explosions will be rigging dmg. Only in the vicinity of the explosion crew will die due to blast overpressure waves (lung dmg). Further away falling rigging +  fragmentation will cause casualties, but not that much that a whole ship will be decrewed.

Main threat from fireship and explosions was danger of catching fire, not blast, as you were protected from it by flammable wooden walls

[erelkivtuadrater]

10 minutes ago, Never said:

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 protecting to simulate the other ship. 

its 1000kg black powder explosion, considering this is on concrete and the building is of course "ligther" i still think that the explosion inside a ship would look alot more devastating.

Also this one, A docked ship with 37pounds ( over half of what Victory had) black powder explodes, destroying anything withing 550 m2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734743X00000671?via%3Dihub

[Never]

 

6 minutes ago, TheDread said:

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.   

I think 1 is overdue, there's only so such we should be able to make crewmen do, telling them to let the ship sink or go up in flames and that they should just keep working the guns seems a little much. Survival should not be an option you can click off. 

2 is also a good suggestion. 3 I disagree with cause then you're just making fireships pointless. 

I would add that we also need some adjustment to bracing. If explosions are going to be so common place, the current cooldown is way too long. 

[erelkivtuadrater]

maybe if you turn off survival, you should start losing crew as an "Abandon Ship" mechanic?

[Malcolm3]

10 minutes ago, erelkivtuadrater said:

Also this one, A docked ship with 37pounds ( over half of what Victory had) black powder explodes, destroying anything withing 550 m2: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0734743X00000671?via%3Dihub

Read this article (got it via SciHub) - there were only 151 people killed and around 2000 wounded, and all dead (and most destruction) were within 109 meters from explosion.

Also as mentioned before, powder magasine is below waterline, so main direction of blast is upwards

Edited December 8, 2019 by Malcolm3

[Despe]

Fire ships are a tactic like others, but it need a fix to make it playable. A fire ship was a prepared ship, i dont think that Nelson going to suicide make the Victory like a fire ship if we were loose at Trafalgar. The problem is that fireship is used for players when are loosing this battle like a angry childs and this make the mechanics of game so weird. In my opinion is needed and upgrade that make your ship avalaible to a fire ship, and make fireshooks in "normal" ships like an accident that crew cant control, but never like a choice of his owner dissabling the survival, like japanese kamikazes against the american carriers. And kill 100 per cent of crew of one enemy ship, i think that is so crazy too.

[z4ys]

• When a ship is on fire survival is turned on and cant be turned off
• When a ship is on fire and "fire ship upgrade" is equiped (shoud be part of the nation store) player can turn of survival. Furthermore crew gets reduced by 70% (as admin already said)

Those changes would make fire ships a weapon of choice and not a weapon of circumstance. Currently its to strong regarding that it has no negatives and can be used a la "oh my ship is shot to pieces a well I cough fire lets go with a boom"

Shooting into the flames of a burning ship should still result in possible explosion even that said ship is not fire ship fitted. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by z4ys

[Elric]

if fire ships can only have very reduced crew, then their sailing / turning ability will (or at least should) be very reduced - and once set alight, the crew should abandon ship and leave the ship on a fixed course.

Won't there be an issue with having very reduced crew, in allowing far more big ships into a PB?

 

[Mouth of Sauron]

The fact of the matter is fully crewed fireships, in this case 1st and 2nd rates, simply did not exist.  Fireships were used as a tactic against ships at USUALLY anchor or in port.  Why?  Because a fireship isn't steered.  Crew kinda want to live.  You lash the wheel and point and prey.  Their current role in the game is ENTIRELY unrealistic.  The damage radius is also absurd.  What ships were used as fireships?  Typically older and outdated ones they could sacrifice in a pinch.  The tactic was SOMETIMES successful.  If you could direct me into the annals of history where a 1st rate was sailed into battle with a full crew and used intentionally as a suicide bomb....one instance of it.......and I'll purchase your leopard DLC.   

I mean a fireship with 1000 crew going full speed turning and catching up to a moving line is nuts.

Should ships explode under heavy fire.  yes.  It happened.
Should ships catch on fire and become partially disabled until the fire is out.  yes.
Should they be used as fully crewed 1st rate nukes in every battle.  no

@Anolytic, @North and even @rediii all seem to be in agreement here.  Getting all those guys to to be on the same side of ANYTHING should indicate to you that the mechanics are indeed broken and need to be fixed.  

UN explosion radius tools are not creating a good gameplay environment here.  It's time to listen to the community and dial them back to what they were prior to these recent changes.....which frankly seemed to be fine.  Make a minor change that ships on fire become somewhat disabled or have their fighting ability significantly hampered and we're good.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Mouth of Sauron

[John Sheppard]

Like others have suggested i think crew damage should be lowered for ships in brace and also there should be Hull damage for nearby ships and quite significant at that if the ship is touching the exploding ship , with a dropout to zero hull damage at 150m 

But i also have another suggestion which i didn't see from anyone (didn't read all the posts tho) and it's that crew damage should be dependant not only on distance but also on the health of the ship in question . Ie if a ship is heavily damaged and lost most of its armor it would not protect its crew well as it's become "swiss cheese" full of holes . 

Also i think there should be a cooldown when coming out of brace aswell as i imagine in this situation in real life i would order all the gun ports closed ASAP , even firing the guns in order to do that if neccessary and then all crew bellow decks where they should be quite safe from the explosion unless it was so close enough that it would damage the ship's planking but in no case would it kill EVERYONE

sorry if it doesn't make sense i'm half asleep

[Teutonic]

4 hours ago, rediii said:

Well it is super effective at 100m

It is also enemy 1sts that are exploding not the friendly ones. Or can I throw buckets of water on enemy ships?

these are the questions worth asking.

 

feedback is asking for the fireship damage to be turned down but the answer we got was to just "put water buckets on your ships to stop your ship from exploding."

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 hours 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

 

I'm not sure where your getting your info from but the blast of black powder compared to TNT is not the same.  Also since Black Powder is actually about 3 megajoules per kilogram and TNT is 4.7 Megajoules how are you getting that less Gunpowder 38.5 tons of gunpowder would be 47 tons of TNT?   I'm actually trying to find a formula to convert and would like to see which one your using.   To me this would mean that it prob is more like 38 tons would be more like less tons of TNT than more.  

Graph below is showing the pressure when equal weights are exploded as they both don't explode the same. The reason we use gunpowder is cause of it's low explosive rates and pressure so you don't blow your barrel to pieces.  Also hard to find old black powder vs modern smokeless powder rates.   I actually reload my own ammo and I'll tell you smokeless is way more powerful than old school black powder.  But as I stated above would like to see some actually formulas since I can't find anything in actual writings how to compare them.   

Source of above graph was from this link.  https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology/sites-and-projects/ship-wrecksites/hl-hunley/black-powder-blast-effects-hunley.html  talking about the use of black powder blast with the Confederate Submarine Henley.

Blackpowder R.E (.55) Factor is half that of TNT so that means that 35 tons of Blackpowder would prob be more like 17 tons of TNT.   https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm5-250(92).pdf Chart is on 1-2.   

 

And now I'm prob flagged by the ATF/FBI for doing that research lol

Edited December 9, 2019 by Sir Texas Sir
Add more info....

[admin]

1 hour ago, Teutonic said:

these are the questions worth asking.

 

feedback is asking for the fireship damage to be turned down but the answer we got was to just "put water buckets on your ships to stop your ship from exploding."

Your dismissive tones assume we never listen to users yet the topic you comment on is literally asking for player feedback - with a direct question " What do you think? This question was asked IMMEDIATELY after fire patch was given out.

I find it a double standard that you feel that the only right opinion on this forum can be YOUR opinion. Best ideas survive in factual discovery and heated debates around the subject; you seem to be Immediately dismissing other views.  Based on your comment we cannot even express our opinion.

[Never]

@Sir Texas Sir
Thank you for posting that. I was seriously doubting that conversion between black powder and TNT, as it seemed completely wrong. But I didn't have the research to back it up. 

[admin]

46 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

 

Blackpowder R.E (.55) Factor is half that of TNT so that means that 35 tons of Blackpowder would prob be more like 17 tons of TNT.   https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm5-250(92).pdf Chart is on 1-2.   

And now I'm prob flagged by the ATF/FBI for doing that research lol

17 tons still sounds like a lot... 
 

[Sir Texas Sir]

6 minutes ago, admin said:

17 tons still sounds like a lot... 

 

It still is, but the reason I showed the comparison of TNT and Black powered is the blast is not the same.  Which is why we use them in firearms/cannons and such.  With a ship it would be contained and than force out the easiest way which is up.  Some one else mention the biggest threat when a ship blew up wasn't the blast it was the debris from the blast.   Than you have multi mag ships, they won't all blow up at the same time unless the ship is just that much on fire, you would have secondary explosions.   I would say you still have crew damage, but not as much right now and soft targets like crew would get damage, that would be your sails of ships around if your at full sail you should take more damage to them.  This would push the reason to use battle sails more and more.  It drives me nuts that folks are at full sails all the time in battles.   Full sails should mean more crew (maining the sails) and sails damage than some one that is at battle sails or sails down.  

[Oli Garchy]

if we are gonna keep this fireship meta why not bring back ram leaks? 

[Louis Garneray]

One of the rare ship explosion during the Napoleonic Wars was the Orient

We can have a look at the account of its explosion here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Nile#Destruction_of_Orient

What we can remember is that the ship was not moving (easier to shoot at), there seems to have a fire already started (probably from paint not stored at the right place), the crew was unable to fight the fire efficiently because of the water pump damaged. Also a very special ammunition was stored close by (incendiary shell) which didn't help.

So all considered we should think that a ship exploding should be a rare event and a combination of many elements going against its crew ability to fight the fire.

[z4ys]

2 hours ago, Louis Garneray said:

...

An other battle where an explosion occurred

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_St._Vincent_(1780)

Resulted in the loss of all except 1 onboard the exploding ship. Maybe someone can find/know a more detailed documentation.

Edited December 9, 2019 by z4ys

[Angus MacDuff]

16 minutes ago, rediii said:

- Remove fireship 1-3 from the game

This is actually a very good suggestion that would give a nod to realism and more importantly, immersion.  Fireships that were used in that mission were not expensive capitol ships.

[Angus MacDuff]

8 hours ago, admin said:

17 tons still sounds like a lot... 

The explosion of L'Orient did not sink (or even dismast) any of the nearby ships. An open air explosion that does not have it's force directed, is not as damaging as you may think.  Most of the force goes up.

[erelkivtuadrater]

45 minutes ago, rediii said:

- Remove fireship 1-3 from the game

i can agree with this, but the problem with this is that the BR of lineships compared to other ships are way to low so any ships thats not a 1st rate or 2nd rate will get focused since it would be obvious that its a fireship, so you cant really disguise it as they normally were.

ATLEAST the BR of 1st and 2nd rate. Example. Christian has 100 more BR then Bellona and over 50% more broadside firepower

Edited December 9, 2019 by erelkivtuadrater

[Angus MacDuff]

6 minutes ago, erelkivtuadrater said:

can agree with this, but the problem with this is that the BR of lineships compared to other ships are way to low so any ships thats not a 1st rate or 2nd rate will get focused since it would be obvious that its a fireship, so you cant really disguise it as they normally were.

That is exactly what happened in real life.  Designated fire ships were nowhere near as effective as they are in the game.  We need to go back to killing our foes with cannon balls and not arcady special effects.