Penetration and gun rebalance - review

[Hethwill]

6 minutes ago, Genevieve Malfleurs said:

yes yes yes. all vessels but aboveall the 3rd rates and higher are way too agile!

Not about size nor rate. About rig and wind.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

11 hours ago, Archaos said:

And how does the mast going all the way down to the keel aid the ships stability?

Never worked with wood?

The more parts you connect with each other, the more stability you achieve. A mast going down to the keel and fastened there distributes physical forces received over sails all the way down the ship. Added stiffening by each deck's beams casing the mast.

[DonH]

4 hours ago, Lieste said:

At 100yds, a 4lb should be capable of penetrating around 28" (max at 20yds ~31.5"), this falls off reasonably rapidly - by 440yds ~17.5"

A 32lb carronade would be 33.9" at 20yds, 32.5" at 100 yds, 27.5" at 440yds
24lb carronade - 30.5", 29", 24.5"
12lb carronade - 22", 21", 17.5"
 

and i suppose thats is where the buff comes in cuz for a 4 pounder to pen any unupgraded ship at 100m it should go up to at least 100cm of pen right? 28 inches is not enough is it? @admin

[Sea Archer]

I think it is a goos idea to rework the gunnery.

My suggestion is have the carronade a realy effective gun (accuracy and penetration) at about 100m, everything above that distance is too easy to achieve with the high speed ships we have (compared to reloading the guns). This doesn't mean, that carronades should not penetrate above 100m, but their accuracy should be that bad, that they cannot be called effective.

Then the damage caused to wood and man shall depend on the speed (energy) of the shot passing the timbers. Fast flying shots should do little damage to the wood they hit (passing right through the timbers), though may do some more damage to the stucture and/or the other side of the ship. A shot with barely the energy to penetrate should do the most damage to the material, and by causing splinters, to the crew. Double charge at close distance would therefore do the least damage, while double shot does the most.

At close quarters, during boarding, we should be able to reduce the charge to do more damage (without making it another perk). I even would like to see shots with the standard charge flying out of the other side and damaging any ship, which is lying there.

For a further improvement of the gunnery, it would be great to be able to load roundshot and grape (canister) at the same time. This would be for short range only, but a nice option to damage the ship and the crew at the same time.

 

The most pressing issue, that has to be reworkes, is the sail/mast damage. Right now it is quite easy to dismast a ships, imo the hitboxes for the masts are too big.

I propose a different approach. While the historical captains could do nearly nothing in terms of hull repairs (apart from stopping leaks), sails/rigging repairs where quite common and neccessary. Therefore I suggest to increase the complexity of the rigging damage by modelling single lines and spars as hitboxes. Each of them has a different impact, when damaged and a ship can be dismasted by destroying the shrouds and/or stays + the pressure of sails on that mast. (We will need some damage screen then, showing what is damaged on our own ship).

I suggest to have then repair teams, that can be set on the tasks to repair a certain part of the damaged tophamper, the player can choose which one. (When the shrouds on one side are shot away, the mast can still take the pressure from the other side, so other repairs might be more pressing). The bigger the ship the more repair teams are needed and the amount of work ist bigger.

For the hull there would only be leak repairs (in different sections) setting up guns again (though this is a way unhistorical, more for gameplay) and repairing pumps, rudder and the other little things that can be damaged. But no hull damage.

As a result, you can get your ship going again, after some major sail damage, get the little things working again, but the hull is the overall limiting factor. This will close the gap between rich and experienced players and the rest a bit, since no one can outrepair the damage.

 

[Archaos]

13 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

Never worked with wood?

The more parts you connect with each other, the more stability you achieve. A mast going down to the keel and fastened there distributes physical forces received over sails all the way down the ship. Added stiffening by each deck's beams casing the mast.

Apologies, its just that in my limited study of Naval Architecture I always thought that stability was to do with things like Center of Gravity, Center of Buoyancy, displacement, Metacenter etc and the ability of a vessel once inclined by and external force to return to an upright state on removal of the force. Maybe all that learning was a waste of time!!!!!

I think what you refer to as stability is actually more about structural strength and the ability of the vessel to withstand structural stresses it encounters in normal operation. You can have the most structurally sound vessel that is useless without adequate stability. Where the mast is connected and whether it goes down to the keel or not has no direct bearing on the ships stability.  

[Je maintiendrai]

21 hours ago, Genevieve Malfleurs said:

yes yes yes. all vessels but aboveall the 3rd rates and higher are way too agile!

You just want to sterncamp our big ships with snows! 😭

[You]

12 minutes ago, Je maintiendrai said:

You just want to sterncamp our big ships with snows! 😭

the deacceleration on the snow makes it redicilous to sterncamp with, they managed to fix one part with the acceleration. Along with no passive crew loss due to some kind of musket fire.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

6 hours ago, Archaos said:

Apologies, its just that in my limited study of Naval Architecture I always thought that stability was to do with things like Center of Gravity, Center of Buoyancy, displacement, Metacenter etc and the ability of a vessel once inclined by and external force to return to an upright state on removal of the force. Maybe all that learning was a waste of time!!!!!

I think what you refer to as stability is actually more about structural strength and the ability of the vessel to withstand structural stresses it encounters in normal operation. You can have the most structurally sound vessel that is useless without adequate stability. Where the mast is connected and whether it goes down to the keel or not has no direct bearing on the ships stability.  

I think there is nothing to be misunderstood in the term 'stability' when someone is exclusively talking about wood construction and showing illustrations which show how masts continue to reach vertically through the decks right down to the bottom.

Was not aware there is a perhaps a nautical special meaning of 'stability' which could overlay the common understanding of constructive stability, or 'stiffness'.

[HachiRoku]

1 hour ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

I think there is nothing to be misunderstood in the term 'stability' when someone is exclusively talking about wood construction and showing illustrations which show how masts continue to reach vertically through the decks right down to the bottom.

Was not aware there is a perhaps a nautical special meaning of 'stability' which could overlay the common understanding of constructive stability, or 'stiffness'.

You used stability perfectly fine. It's a broad term. Stiffness is more technical and has to do with flexibility. A ship can be both stable and flex too. By design to be far. 

[Knuddel]

On 7/28/2020 at 10:44 AM, admin said:

Captains.

We plan to deploy the gun rework soon. Here is the short description for the review and discussion

Goals for the rework

• Gun roles
  • Gun roles will remain but they will be slightly improved in their roles
  • Long guns/Navy Guns - Strong Penetration
    • Effective range for 42lb - 1km
  • Medium guns/Blomfields - Balanced penetration and DPS
    • Effective range for 42lb - 700m
  • Congrieve/Edinorogs - Strong DPS
    • Effective range for 42lb - 500m
  • Carronades/Obusiers - 
    • Effective range for 42lb - 250m
  • Effective range meaning
    • Gun will penetrate non-upgraded ship at this distance at 90 degrees hit angle. 
  • Penetration drops will be improved based on historical penetration drops but with effective ranges defined.
• Range control. 
  • Every gun will have a role (even 4lb). All guns should be able to penetrate a fully upgraded ship hull and masts at 100m as they could historically. Including smallest calibers.
  • Heaviest guns penetration ranges will strongly improve. 
  • Every gun will have defined effective range both for masts and for hull
• Thickness - Masts vs Hull
  • Thickness difference for masts and hulls will be reduced for ships, with effective distance of operation in mind. 
  • Thickness difference between some classes will be reduced or removed
  • Thickness for masts will be rebalanced for range - but ALL upgraded masts will be somewhat vulnerable at close range
  • Upgrades for hull and masts will not give invulnerability but instead will reduce or increase effective safe range. 
• Accuracy
  • Accuracy will be finally rebalanced (including for tracking shot)
  • Accuracy will grow with caliber as defined by the Treatise on Gunnery and other historical sources on Ordnance.

Overall the changes will do the following

• Bring range back into play
• Define effective ranges better
• Reduce thickness inflation and make it work gameplay wise
• Make more guns usable (including small calibers)
• Provide clarity on masts and thickness penetration in terms of range.

 

The list is not final and will be updated based on questions and comments. 
ETA - 1-3 more days.

How mast where killed in that ages: Killing Ropes which stabalise the masts and if the sails gets not cutted imidiatly by Windforce... I mean we are always talking on Angles. Imagin a round Mast a round ball what happens? I dont like the Demasting meta by just gunfire... Mast should have a lot more HP. I mean especialy on 5rds +

and Remember when u see all those Pictures of demasted ships in that ages: Those fights where going on for Days... till one side has no more Gunpowder or balls to shoot back.

Ships where not sunken by Gunnfights. 

Explosions where happen just by accsidents and not by Command. 

Fireships where FIREships and not Exploding Vessels. Mostly small ships which where used to break blokades on Ankered ships. (Christian Religion very cummon. Suicide will not get into Heaven but into Hell....)

If u would get the Command to not fight the Fire what would u do? Jump over board i guess... ? try to survive urself... maybee if u deactivate survival let guys jump over board more and more by the time...?

 

and Finaly: Gunnfights where mostly and that is 100% confirmed on close range like musket range. We are talking about Round Balls which are not exactly matching the Calliber... accurity is a thing u should reballance. (I have shootet a Frontloader Revolver a lot of rounds like 200 Shoots a year for a couple of years now. Hiting on just 16 m is more a Luck thing that everything else and there The calliber is Exactly Matching....) So sniping for a mast on more than 100m should just not be possible. To shoot for hull on broudsight... Possible but we are talking about Projektils which do damage not on there Speed buy on there whight. 300M/ Secound isnt that much and depending on Calliber (Bigger less range Airresistant..)they do less damadge. 

So what about a Damadge buff on close range? 

[Archaos]

2 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

I think there is nothing to be misunderstood in the term 'stability' when someone is exclusively talking about wood construction and showing illustrations which show how masts continue to reach vertically through the decks right down to the bottom.

Was not aware there is a perhaps a nautical special meaning of 'stability' which could overlay the common understanding of constructive stability, or 'stiffness'.

There is a lot to be misunderstood in the way you used the term. You just threw out a general statement that the mast goes down to the keel to aid "ships stability" with no further explanation other than a few pictures showing the mast going down to the keel. I challenge you to search the term "ship stability" and let me know if you find anything about constructive stability. Even the word "stiffness" in relation to "ships stability" has a different meaning than what you are talking about.

[Genevieve Malfleurs]

22 minutes ago, Knuddel said:

How mast where killed in that ages: Killing Ropes which stabalise the masts and if the sails gets not cutted imidiatly by Windforce... I mean we are always talking on Angles. Imagin a round Mast a round ball what happens? I dont like the Demasting meta by just gunfire... Mast should have a lot more HP. I mean especialy on 5rds +

and Remember when u see all those Pictures of demasted ships in that ages: Those fights where going on for Days... till one side has no more Gunpowder or balls to shoot back.

Ships where not sunken by Gunnfights. 

Explosions where happen just by accsidents and not by Command. 

Fireships where FIREships and not Exploding Vessels. Mostly small ships which where used to break blokades on Ankered ships. (Christian Religion very cummon. Suicide will not get into Heaven but into Hell....)

If u would get the Command to not fight the Fire what would u do? Jump over board i guess... ? try to survive urself... maybee if u deactivate survival let guys jump over board more and more by the time...?

 

and Finaly: Gunnfights where mostly and that is 100% confirmed on close range like musket range. We are talking about Round Balls which are not exactly matching the Calliber... accurity is a thing u should reballance. (I have shootet a Frontloader Revolver a lot of rounds like 200 Shoots a year for a couple of years now. Hiting on just 16 m is more a Luck thing that everything else and there The calliber is Exactly Matching....) So sniping for a mast on more than 100m should just not be possible. To shoot for hull on broudsight... Possible but we are talking about Projektils which do damage not on there Speed buy on there whight. 300M/ Secound isnt that much and depending on Calliber (Bigger less range Airresistant..)they do less damadge. 

So what about a Damadge buff on close range?

i fully agree on the part of rigging damage to make masts fall! but a heavy roundball at almost sonic speed has a very high energy an does plenty of damage. muzzle-loaders are mostly way more precise than commonly expected. we have a couple of mates in our club that surprise me all the time how good they hit with them.

[Hethwill]

1 hour ago, Knuddel said:

and Remember when u see all those Pictures of demasted ships in that ages: Those fights where going on for Days

That statement is not even close to reality. Damage to rig is present in absolutely every single naval engagement. From the ones that lasted 15 minutes with rigging getting blasted and masts falling overboard, to the ones that lasted 4 hours and more and seeing majority of ships with masts lost. One common factor across is that somehow for some reason the mizzen seems to always be the one that falls first. Just for the sake of anedocte, HMS Quebec battle against the Surveillante. Both ships ended with no masts whatsoever after an engagement that lasted some 3 hours ( is never non stop, there's lulls in battle, ships move away to repair etc, RL is not a game )

Now, let's get back to the game and talk about game.  Timespace scale is 4x faster that RL in battle. Means we can accurately simulate 1 hour of battle in 15 minutes, and battle of 4 hours in 1. Is the damage that dramatic when seen at that scale ?

Not a good thing to be dismasted in the first broadside ( note: if it happened IRL it should be able to happen in game ) but also not good to have invulnerabilities.

I'd argue that modules and books stacking promote a specialization in dismasting, but all i read is suggestions focusing on touching HP and thickness and whatnot rather than - remove excess %% from books/modules to make marginal gains.

I'd also argue that the gun batteries are stabilized with little to no dispersion connected to natural roll of ships, as we can keep the aim point steady.

Game balance must simulate realism as a whole, not nitpick what fits. IMO

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Hethwill

[Aquillas]

On 7/28/2020 at 1:18 PM, van stiermarken said:

Funny that we start that discussion again, what we had already in 2014. and here the facts about cannons and their penetration

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=8lKY5vigF2YC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

 

I guess the speeds here above are given in feet per second...

 

From that, just a matter of energy calculations: the energy of the ball (kinetic energy), compared to the energy of the energy of the hull (potential energy).

The simplest one is the energy of the ball: E1= m v² / 2, where m is the mass of the ball (pd/0.454),and v the impact speed of the ball (in meters per second)

The potential energy of the hull resistance is proportional to the cylinder to be dug in the hull. This cylinder is disformed by the impact angle, its length is equal to thick / cos(angle).

Its diameter is impacted by angle too. It is equal to the ball diameter divided by cos(angle).

The ball diameter can be calculated, assuming the density of steel (7.8), knowing that the volume of a sphere is equal to 0.75 x pi x r3, we get pd= 7.8 x 0.75 x pi x (d/2)^^3, thus d= (8 x pd / 7.8 / 0.75 / pi)^^(1/3).

 

So, we have

The ball energy = K1 x pd x (impact_speed)².

The hull energy = K2 x pound^^(1/3) x thick / cos²(angle).

K1 and K2 to be balanced, and maybe adding some randomisation (hull being weaken by previous impact that did penetrate or not, presence of structural wood at the impact location, etc)

[You]

1 hour ago, Hethwill said:

I'd argue that modules and books stacking promote a specialization in dismasting, but all i read is suggestions focusing on touching HP and thickness and whatnot rather than - remove excess %% from books/modules to make marginal gains.

I'd also argue that the gun batteries are stabilized with little to no dispersion connected to natural roll of ships, as we can keep the aim point steady.

Game balance must simulate realism as a whole, not nitpick what fits. IMO

totally agree, the mod stacking is what makes the books and upgrades worth way more then the ship itself, it really needs to be looked into.

I also agree that something needs to happen with the stabilization of the gun batteries. It feels really arcady when you can do a full break or full turn while firing the broadside in the middle of it with perfect accuracy, it feels like the combat from Sid Meiers Pirates tbh sometimes (not to hate on that game, because it doesn't chase for being the most realistic one)

[Aquillas]

42 minutes ago, Lieste said:

Why reinvent the formulae. This is from Poncelet, translated to English units.
(12*1.1513*W)/(32.2*kA*D*D) * LOG(1 + (V/kB)*(V/kB))

Where the later Didion parameters, as copied by Bashforth are 0.004328 for kA and 734 for kB.

I tried to understand and to search what about Poncelet and Didion, but I did not get it... Sorry.

What exactly is equal to (12*1.1513*W)/(32.2*kA*D*D) * LOG(1 + (V/kB)*(V/kB)) ?

Edited July 30, 2020 by Aquillas

[Schnapss]

2 hours ago, Hethwill said:

Game balance must simulate realism as a whole, not nitpick what fits. IMO

Game balance must not simulate realism at all. It is a wrong direction and a dead end.

The quote from steam - "Naval Action is a hardcore, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat sandbox" with MMO tag. MMO sandbox is about gameplay, economics and balance. 99.9% players do not give a shit about wood hardness, sailing physics, real cannon penetration and all this nonsense posted above. You can rename all cannons to caliber 1, 2, 3, rename all wood to white, black, yellow and so on and no one would care if the game will provide entertaining gameplay, perfect combat balance and live and balanced economy. It is the main issue of this game that devs try to develop irrelevant things connected to "realism" supported by minority on forum instead of fixing core issues. 

If game development is about "realism" than steam description should be changed to something like - this game is similar to MS flight simulator in age of sails. no need in deceiving potential buyers. I even would not ask my money back, let it be, I received my share of fun already. And you can continue to play on server with 10 ppl online who share your beliefs.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Schnapss

[Knuddel]

U want to do some math. K than calculate Plz: 42 PD whight of the Bullet. on 300m per secound. Iron/ steal. Diameter by Airresistance and than the total range... i guess u will be amused... 

[Aquillas]

17 minutes ago, Knuddel said:

U want to do some math. K than calculate Plz: 42 PD whight of the Bullet. on 300m per secound. Iron/ steal. Diameter by Airresistance and than the total range... i guess u will be amused... 

  You forgot the air density, the wind direction, and the temperature.   

[Hethwill]

31 minutes ago, Schnapss said:

Game balance must not simulate realism at all. It is a wrong direction and a dead end.

Maybe i explained myself wrong.

When attempting to make a specific mechanic credible in game in regard to RL ( leaving other mechanics untouched leads to odd results ) as opposed to make all mechanics work together as credible as possible ( if changing one aspect, it replicates equally to all others ).

NA is not a simulator, i get that.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Hethwill

[Knuddel]

1 hour ago, Aquillas said:

  You forgot the air density, the wind direction, and the temperature.   

even without that the Results will be that u are on 200m below 160m/sec...

Edited July 30, 2020 by Knuddel

[Hethwill]

Lighter shot loses speed faster even with equivalent suggested charge of 1/3 weight.

Further.

Drop due do gravity is exponential. Batteries did sight "flat" at roughly 1º40', not zero, to make up for the initial drop. Roughly 3-4 feet in the first 200m ( actually 195, 100 toises), rises to 20-23 by 400m (390m 200 toises). ( Boudriot )

Majority of gunnery tests conducted on land or stable ramps. Zero continuous roll.

Point blank for a 8 livres would be 500m.

This is just trajectory and reach, nothing to do speed/energy carried ( which ship composite construction does help to dissipate, is not a slab of steel ).

 

[Eowulf]

                       

3 hours ago, Schnapss said:

Game balance must not simulate realism at all. It is a wrong direction and a dead end.

The quote from steam - "Naval Action is a hardcore, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat sandbox" with MMO tag. MMO sandbox is about gameplay, economics and balance. 99.9% players do not give a shit about wood hardness, sailing physics, real cannon penetration and all this nonsense posted above. You can rename all cannons to caliber 1, 2, 3, rename all wood to white, black, yellow and so on and no one would care if the game will provide entertaining gameplay, perfect combat balance and live and balanced economy. It is the main issue of this game that devs try to develop irrelevant things connected to "realism" supported by minority on forum instead of fixing core issues. 

If game development is about "realism" than steam description should be changed to something like - this game is similar to MS flight simulator in age of sails. no need in deceiving potential buyers. I even would not ask my money back, let it be, I received my share of fun already. And you can continue to play on server with 10 ppl online who share your beliefs.

In my experience, most the people who stick with this game are due to the realism and relative historical accuracy, and yes that's what we want.  Within reason of coures.  If you want arcade pirate ships there is sid meyers or sea of thieves.  This is the only realistic tall ship game on the market so don't try to change that.

[Duc De Brabant]

On 7/28/2020 at 11:18 AM, Lizzo said:

About what ship are we talking? Historically, line ships (3d rate and upward) were almost unsinkable even after hours of close range broadside exchanges. So I hope we won't see basic cutter penetrating 1st rates at 100m because in my opinion that would be just stupid 

well, you know, devs are going to say that it's normal for 2lb gun to penetrate Ocean hull at 100m.....

first half of 2020 develeopment:

New ships

1. Redoutable - Imported ship
   • (this month subject to Valve Approval)
2. Implacable - crafted ship
   • (this month)
3. Wrecker - crafted ship
   • (February)
4. HMS Victory Classic Edition  - Admiralty Imported Gift ship
   • 1st half of 2020
5. Rotterdam - Combat Indiaman
   • 1st half of 2020
6. Gross ventre refit will return this or next month 
7. Pandora will become available on Steam for purchase

still no news for those two ... GG devs ! you are on time ! and still no updates for 2nd half of 2020 .... lazy devs ?

devs litterally do what they only want, community feedback is always reduced to silence. I don't count on devs to make the game better actually... and sadly

Edited July 30, 2020 by Duc De Brabant

[Rektified]

Are we going to see an AI rebalance to reflect this?  Will sinking times be adjusted to allow for looting sunk ships in time?

Currently players have to make extensive use of angling to win a fight against even a same-rate ship of lower BR (i.e., player Redoutable vs AI Wasa) due to the AI's ridiculous reload and aim bonuses.  If angling is going to be less effective, AI needs to have its bonuses reduced - especially elite and privateer AI.

Furthermore, as we'll presumably be engaging in battle at longer distances, we're going to need more time to loot a wreck.  It would also be nice if the looting circle was expanded, as looting in 3rd rate and larger ships can be frustrating.