Seasonal Patch: The Missing Links Part 1

[William Death]

3 hours ago, You said:

it doesent really help you any better when you have the rudder the wrong way which wants to tack the ship left when you want to tack right though, on this clip you're basically reversing straight into the beach instead of tacking the wind

Did you actually play with the leeway when it was implemented to the degree in that video? It was completely overdone and unplayable. Ships were moving faster sideways than they were going forward. It could have been toned down some, and be in a good place. But what we have now (almost no leeway) is at least better than what we had then (way too much). Anyways I digress.

 

The patch looks promising, actually. Anything that forces people to think and have some actual skill in combat again is good. Tired of seeing people using carronades getting 10 yards away and spamming 5,1 every 12 minutes. Perhaps this patch will force people to think, apply some actual tactics, and stay at reasonable ranges. 

Speaking of the repair spam: @admin will you consider reducing repairs to a maximum of one or two uses per battle again? The repair meta is very much broken at the moment, and it makes combat feel like it doesn't reward skill as much as it rewards stacking repair mods. I remember when we only had one use of each repair, and it forced you to make careful decisions when you decided to trade away your HP to get a broadside in.

 

Lastly, I tend to agree with the sentiments of others...this patch might help the combat area, but Naval Action's crafting side leaves much to be desired still. So many new woods, still just a few meta builds and a lot of useless builds, and a lot of grind to get any kind of competitive gear. It doesn't feel right, and it punishes losses too hard, which encourages trollish gameplay, ganking, and discourages fighting challenging fights. I know of at least a dozen players who aren't playing right now for these reasons.

I remember when the maximum differences in mod stacking was far lower (closer to +/-10% when everything applied), and everything was more accessible to the average player. Fights were plentiful and losing a ship was only an inconvenience. I think a re-balancing of woods and mods, along with the removal of a number of wood types and mods would create the second part of the 'missing link' patch.

[Farrago]

9 hours ago, Koltes said:

Thats great, but I never heard players complaining that fighting mechanics makes this game unplayable...

I have heard a lot that poor crafting implementation together with poor RVR and Open World mechanics were the biggest problem. 

Are we getting our priorities right?  

“sailing model to make Naval Action (and future games) better” Emphasis added.

As someone else recently said, “It is, what it is.”  

[Stilgar]

2 hours ago, William Death said:

Did you actually play with the leeway when it was implemented to the degree in that video? It was completely overdone and unplayable. Ships were moving faster sideways than they were going forward. It could have been toned down some, and be in a good place. But what we have now (almost no leeway) is at least better than what we had then (way too much). Anyways I digress.

 

The patch looks promising, actually. Anything that forces people to think and have some actual skill in combat again is good. Tired of seeing people using carronades getting 10 yards away and spamming 5,1 every 12 minutes. Perhaps this patch will force people to think, apply some actual tactics, and stay at reasonable ranges. 

Speaking of the repair spam: @admin will you consider reducing repairs to a maximum of one or two uses per battle again? The repair meta is very much broken at the moment, and it makes combat feel like it doesn't reward skill as much as it rewards stacking repair mods. I remember when we only had one use of each repair, and it forced you to make careful decisions when you decided to trade away your HP to get a broadside in.

 

Lastly, I tend to agree with the sentiments of others...this patch might help the combat area, but Naval Action's crafting side leaves much to be desired still. So many new woods, still just a few meta builds and a lot of useless builds, and a lot of grind to get any kind of competitive gear. It doesn't feel right, and it punishes losses too hard, which encourages trollish gameplay, ganking, and discourages fighting challenging fights. I know of at least a dozen players who aren't playing right now for these reasons.

I remember when the maximum differences in mod stacking was far lower (closer to +/-10% when everything applied), and everything was more accessible to the average player. Fights were plentiful and losing a ship was only an inconvenience. I think a re-balancing of woods and mods, along with the removal of a number of wood types and mods would create the second part of the 'missing link' patch.

Very good summary. I am also nostalgic about the times when less was more. It's like in that Chinese saying: Lady Li had few vices, whereas Lady Yu had few virtues (or smth like that). Guess which lady NA is?

Do not get me wrong, the changes do sound interesting, but what's the point in a complex battle mechanics when to fully enjoy it you need to put insane amount of hrs into debilitating grind or just pay the big buck? 

[DDZ_Vasduten]

"Lastly, I tend to agree with the sentiments of others...this patch might help the combat area, but Naval Action's crafting side leaves much to be desired still. So many new woods, still just a few meta builds and a lot of useless builds, and a lot of grind to get any kind of competitive gear. It doesn't feel right, and it punishes losses too hard, which encourages trollish gameplay, ganking, and discourages fighting challenging fights. I know of at least a dozen players who aren't playing right now for these reasons."

This, all this.

Wind shadows are an awesome idea, and I love that the devs are trying hard to educate themselves so thoroughly, but man... the grind in this game is "fun-prohibitive".
New players won't stick around much for wind shadows or anything else if they have to climb Mt. Everest to actually sail a decent ship.
I'm not talking the best ship ever, just something that can compete. As it is now, the winners are rich clans from nations with rare wood drops.
Even there.. 19.5kk in Rangoon teak just to make an Indefatigable.

Yes... sailing and gunnery need work and you're on the right track but this cart goes BEHIND the horse; not in front.

[Tiedemann]

For test server will we have easy access to all the stuff (rank, cannons, ships etc) to extensively test as much as possible in the shortest time possible?

In the past I can remember grinding on test bed, not interested in doing that again.

[James Cornelius]

While there are some other areas of the game that require far more attention, this is definitely a welcome development. Making the sailing model more accurate and thereby removing some of the ways players have "gamed" the system such as pushing ships into the wind is good.

 

But, this brings up a concern regarding the player hunting trader NPCs, or even other player traders. The current model where you effectively fight a tradeship in order to board it is extremely historically inaccurate. If a merchantman couldn't outrun his pursuer, he surrendered. No solution to this problem of balancing that against it so it is not too easy in the game to raid trade ships is fully satisfactory.

 

In Naval Action, hunting tradeships is limited by 1) the time it takes to do it and 2) the need to either fit its cargo into your own hold or add the ship to your "fleet". You are therefore limited in what how many you can take. Historically, captured merchant men rarely continued to accompany their capturer. A prize crew was put aboard to sail it back to a friendly port. Eventually, the limit to how many you could take was therefore how reduced your crew eventually became. 

 

My proposal (which now that I have thought of this I might post elsewhere) is that when you capture a trade ship you have the option of assigning a prize crew and sending it back to one of your outposts. In doing so, you have a malus of x number of crew your ship can hold (regardless of how many total you still have available through replenishment) until you go to that outpost to "claim it" from the Admiralty and do with as you will. This doesn't solve the problem of the trouble of acquiring the captured ship in the first place, but it makes it possible to have a profitable cruise as many frigate captains did. Eventually your effective crew count will dwindle to the point you are forced to return to port - and woe to you if you encounter an enemy in your reduced state.

 

Now, I am hoping some of the decisions based less on historical fact (such as arbitrary assignment of ship rate, disposition of nations, etc) will be revisited.

[Cathal Brugha]

For once you appear to be on the right track. I am actually looking forward to these changes.

[Captain2Strong]

16 hours ago, admin said:

Wind shadow significantly cuts the wind to leeward. At certain range (depending on the height of the mast) the wind could be completely cut. If you sail in a frigate by the leeward side of the first rate you will completely stop - No wind there. This is being implemented in Naval Action.

There are some spaces between sails of a ship (like the red markings show on the picture of this posting), which the wind can flow through
I think that perhaps you could also have this one in mind for your considering. Thank You.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Captain2Strong said:

There are some spaces between sails of a ship (like the red markings show on the picture of this posting), which the wind can flow through
I think that perhaps you could also have this one in mind for your considering. Thank You.

you still play?

[Henry Long Castle]

14 hours ago, Captain2Strong said:

There are some spaces between sails of a ship (like the red markings show on the picture of this posting), which the wind can flow through
I think that perhaps you could also have this one in mind for your considering. Thank You.

The holes as you point out make absolutely no difference since the wind that goes through those gets twisted and distorted to the point that it doesnt offer any kind of power to the sails of a boat that is in the wind shadow

Edited August 9, 2020 by Henry Long Castle

[You]

16 hours ago, William Death said:

Did you actually play with the leeway when it was implemented to the degree in that video? It was completely overdone and unplayable. Ships were moving faster sideways than they were going forward. It could have been toned down some, and be in a good place. But what we have now (almost no leeway) is at least better than what we had then (way too much). Anyways I digress.

i did, i know it was overtuned, but the video is really exaggerating the point when he does wrong manouvers to tack the fastest way possible

[Captain2Strong]

7 hours ago, Je maintiendrai said:

you still play?

I was thinking about coming back to the game after a break and doing so, but what are your thoughts about this wind idea in my posting?

5 hours ago, Henry Long Castle said:

The wholes as you point out make absolutely no difference since the wind that goes through those gets twisted and distorted to the point that it doesnt offer any kind of power to the sails of a boat that is in the wind shadow

So wind does not flow through those to the other ship?

Edited August 9, 2020 by Captain2Strong

[Aquillas]

10 minutes ago, Captain2Strong said:

So wind does not flow through those to the other ship?

For sailing directly downwinds, captains were obliged to use sails on the foremast and the highest sails on main mast only. The wind passing through is too much turbulent to be usable.

Now a days, we still have this rule in wind farms, with a minimum distance between masts, otherwise downwinds equipment can't be used.

[Jan van Santen]

14 hours ago, James Cornelius said:

 Historically, captured merchant men rarely continued to accompany their capturer. A prize crew was put aboard to sail it back to a friendly port.

Actually NA worked like that in 2016....

I remember sending lots of capped ships back to my ports, and later selling them or breaking them up to lvl crafting. 

Like I said in my first post in this thread: some things one just cant make historically accurate in NA, others one can make correct (and should make correct)...but 100% exact sailing certainly would not be my top priority.  More important: some more realistim for crafting and  tradeing etc etc.

One should however avoid arguments about things that certainly are incorrect, eg "overpen" when fireing a small calibre against an sol's sides....

To quote my old Latin teacher: use as much freedom as needed, and as much accuracy as possible....

Edited August 9, 2020 by Jan van Santen

[Henry Long Castle]

1 hour ago, Captain2Strong said:

So wind does not flow through those to the other ship?

I will describe it as simply as I can, 

You have to imagine air as a column of gas moving at a direction. The sails act the same as a wing on a plane does. The leeward side of the sails have lower pressure than the windward side. the air that gets through the gaps as you pointed out, "hugs" the leeward side of the sail all the way until it clears it and then joins the column of air that is "hugging" the leeward side of the next sail, and then the next and so on. This goes on until there are no more sails to "hug". This is why the wind shadow is dragging a bit behind the ship and doesnt cover the length of its side. Hope it makes sense to you.

[Captiva]

On 8/8/2020 at 2:44 AM, admin said:

Wind shadow significantly cuts the wind to leeward. At certain range (depending on the height of the mast) the wind could be completely cut. If you sail in a frigate by the leeward side of the first rate you will completely stop - No wind there. This is being implemented in Naval Action.

 

admin. If a ship is in the wind shadow of another ship will the heeling of that ship be effected as well (less heel)?

Also, I've been reading a bit about wind shadow since your patch announcement and it seems that wind shadow has less of an effect on a ship when it is sailing at higher speeds and more of an effect if it's sailing at slower speeds. Will this be implemented in your model as well?

Thanks

[Henry Long Castle]

19 hours ago, Captiva said:

Also, I've been reading a bit about wind shadow since your patch announcement and it seems that wind shadow has less of an effect on a ship when it is sailing at higher speeds and more of an effect if it's sailing at slower speeds.

The wind shadow is greater in size when you are going slower and smaller in size when you are going fast but when an other boat enters your wind shadow it gets the same effect. However a if the boat is moving faster than you then it has a good chance of going through your wind shadow, clearing it just by using its momentum. Lots of variables on that tho.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Henry Long Castle

[Sento de Benimaclet]

 

For when you want to update Havana.

[Sea Archer]

19 hours ago, Aquillas said:

For sailing directly downwinds, captains were obliged to use sails on the foremast and the highest sails on main mast only. The wind passing through is too much turbulent to be usable.

Now a days, we still have this rule in wind farms, with a minimum distance between masts, otherwise downwinds equipment can't be used.

It would be great, if we could choose the single sails to set... though maybe a bit too complex for this game. 

If you loose your fore topsail in battle, set another sail on that mast to balance the the forces on the ship, else it will be difficult to sail.

Or I would like to see a lost mast hanging over the side of a ship, until all lines were cut away, acting as a big sea anchor.... 

[Jan van Santen]

d/l 145.01 MB testbed patch....

But not playable , yet

Or is this the last issue of testbed stillaround on servers ?? "Important message" looks like it...

Edited August 10, 2020 by Jan van Santen

[DonH]

20 hours ago, Jan van Santen said:

One should however avoid arguments about things that certainly are incorrect, eg "overpen" when fireing a small calibre against an sol's sides....

You wont be overpenetrating a SoL with a small caliber gun, but with this iteration you will certainly have enough penetration at 100m with small caliber guns to be able to do dmg... 

I guess with overpen they ment high pen values even on low caliber guns, so there is always a window of pen with ALL the guns. The size of the window depend on the caliber and the thickness and its modifiers (angle and range), higher calibers will have bigger windows and better acc over longer ranges than small calibers... 

Lets wait and see how they implement this changes on gunnery, because and imho the actual model is boring (32pd carros meta on small ship, longs for everything else... pretty much) and easily abusable at short ranges... This changes might bring back old forgotten ships to the OW, as their guns are going to have some use, all those 6pd and 9pd ships, even some 12pd frigates will see some use after the patch.

The only certain thing we know is that with the gunnery and the wind changes the actual meta is going to be usable, but there are many other options that are not just useless right of the bat as they are now.

[Jan van Santen]

51 minutes ago, DonH said:

You wont be overpenetrating a SoL with a small caliber gun, but with this iteration you will certainly have enough penetration at 100m with small caliber guns to be able to do dmg... 

 

you wont even do damage (at least in historic reality) just check the experiment in the video i linked...It shows  high speed camera recording of a  shot with an 1800 original  small calibre navy gun, against a segment of the Constitution hull 15 m distance, hull thicknes  scaled down to 20 cm....result: wo pen/splinters, lo/wo: bounce.

There was no such thing as overpen in Napoleonic naval warfare (at least against a ships hull)... 

1) blackpowder is a slow burning explosive, it just cant generate enough muzzle velocity(300 -400 m/s was realistic)  for a clean pen.

2) gun balls were approximately round, with a loose fit , guns had smooth bore. Both of which are not suited to generate accurate, straight and high speed shots needed for a clean penetration.

3) gun balls were round,not tipped and  they were made of cast iron, not composite (soft outer, hard and heavy inner  like modern armor piercing ammo

4) even long guns werent long enought for clean pen.. a popular WW2 anti tank gun (Pak 40) eg had  a barrel length of 46 calibres (3.45 m) at 75 mm calibre...

(75 mm would roughly equal a 4 pdr round ball.a 6 pdr is roughly 90 mm calibre and 1.5 m barrel...)

Edited August 10, 2020 by Jan van Santen

[DonH]

@Jan van Santen what do u prefer the actual model or the one proposed to the testbed?

[Jan van Santen]

said it before: there are things that need fixing way more than gunnery or sailing do. from a PvE pov eg crafting, tradeing, ai number/distribution..

Reading here, i am sure PvP experts have a few points they want to be fixed before sailing/gunnery, too

[You]

17 minutes ago, Jan van Santen said:

said it before: there are things that need fixing way more than gunnery or sailing do. from a PvE pov eg crafting, tradeing, ai number/distribution..

Reading here, i am sure PvP experts have a few points they want to be fixed before sailing/gunnery, too

pvp'er here, the crafting imo should be some hybrid of the patch 10 and current system, where you had people creating businesses on sub materials needed for crafting ships. Also a PoE style approach of how you unlock ships for crafting (feels like its to late now), have a system which wraps around the term "there are more then one road that leads to rome" instead of the streamlined crafting xp which unlocks the next ship and the only requirement is the shipyard which is just currency dependent