Why we need armor on masts?

[Reki]

Il try to explain my point of view here to make it clear why armor on masts is necessary.

 

First of all, long time a go I noticed that a lot frigates prefer do damage on masts of heavy ships, than on hulls of any other ships, including frigates. From that time it was one patch, with masts hp increase, but its not enough.

 

1. First reason lay in fact, that light frigate can't effectively damage SOL's hull, specially with long range shooting, but she can safely and pretty effective damage SOL's masts, since there is no armor, just HP, no matter what exactly weight your cannonball have. few days a go (means with current masts hp) right befor my eyes cerberus destroyed victory mast with aim shot just after another one mast fall from my own ST cannon volley. There was 2 victory versus my team, which had only 1 ST and few frigates, so I decided split them a bit with such move. Usually i didn't use this. Anyway taking 2 victory masts+her bow mast take from our small group only 3 full volley in total, while all of shots was from windward position and victory was far from us, going straigh on us exactly in those moment. I just command shot her masts only when she will turn fron to us. I can say that focusing vic's hull in this position is almost pointless. Moreover even focusing vic's hull on parallel course will be pointless too for frigs and even mostly for ST, since it will be very little damage. And at this momen look what result we have just focusing her masts - two of them fall very easy. On this stage there is 3 clear things after it:

- victory wasn't able to effectively shoot back being leeward thanks to heel(she is to slow to being in any other position, than leeward, btw) and she must turn front

- comparing effectivness of harm SOL's with frigates even such small one as cerberus is, on hull or on masts, any captain, which have brain, can 100% choose where he will shoot. And it will be masts. Even those of them who can't understand this himself will see it and will act same later.

- turning front its way to graveyard 

I made some picture with my mad skills to show why exactly shooting ships in different position provides different results. All about fire Area size and flang cannonballs thraectory, which gain huge benefits shooting masts in case, when ship turned to you with his bow. it is close to rake effect, when each cannonball have almost tripple chance to hit masts+ lower target dispersion over fire area means more balls have chances to hit if we talking about fire dispersion.

Another on fact is that yesterday i saw video where cerberus shot bellona sails down to 50% only with 3 full cannon volley loaded with knippels. Its to much for little frigate.

all this means that frigates with demast and sail focusing will be scourge to any SOL. No one, as i see it, wants pay time and resources to obtain SOL, when sailing on it turns into pain. when each puppy can ruin your sails for 1 minute and you can do just nothing with it.

 

Yes, I know what exactly some guys, including admin, replies to this:

- A) shooting masts is good because its game feature, which add new "tactic"

- B ) well, you shouldn't repair your sails, just stick together (i'm smarter than all around, yes)

- C) do same to enemy

- D) we will introduce mast repair later which will be magical skill with cooldown

- E) look on trafalgar pictures, there is all without masts

I can answer to this next:

A) its not good because it replace charge as viable option, which turns into suicide in large fights, if your enemy smart enough to kite with demasting heavy ships permanently (its not take to much brain to get it). 1 focus = 1-2 masts fall on trafalgar. Wasting repairs on sails means loosing actual hull untill you sunk, because each repair its your HP in one or another way. We have wind changes and speed difference, which in some moment of game is real and only one reason to decide charge. Charge isn't only one win option, thrust me. It can be beaten just with hull damage on charging enemy just like it was in Potbs, not with demast kite.

B ) your fleet will find himself in worse position ever, when enemy goes into deadzone for your cannons and still will shoot your ships from there thanks to heel. Retreating counter to wind direction is pain also.

C) scourge of gameplay

D) will change nothing, since it doesn't change anything in short. No sence to fix masts when its still focused, which means you should fall back first, and it means enemy got what they want.

E) in real life no one use windward position as best and do not kite enemy to the death. We aren't in real life. its simple. in our game with "straigh at them" Nelson will loose. In our game you can kite and win, instead of close line fight. In our game frigates do not surrender to SOLs just doing their dirty demast job and not sinking from 5-th volley of first rate rigth on their hull. Gameplay is different and it have own rules.

 

As I  see it, one of answer laying on top is masts armor and short knippel distance. Making frigate fire on masts uneffective from range  instantly removes 50% of the demast problem, which means they finally will do their job - support rates with antifrigate fighting. Short knippel distance (and maybe lower damage) and short demast damage distance means attacker will be in danger to sunk from SOL fire back, as it should be. Key is that armor on masts makes close and range shooting same effective on both hull and masts. I believe, its how it should be to not benefit demast-kite as only one viable option.

 

free to suggest, discuss, etc. I bring it here to special thread, because devs will do nothing with it, untill it doesn't appear scourge-like. For now as they see it, all goes as intended. Have different opinion.

[Kaos]

We need live oak masts

[maturin]

We need live oak masts

That would be like a mast made out of brick.

[SueMyChin]

I think for the most part this is a problem with the nature of the current test. Small ships are forced to fight larger ones with infinite ammo and limited, illogical repairs.

In OW a ship that can't theoretically damage the hull of another has no real business engaging it, at least not 1 on 1. Sure you might reduce his mast's and sails (a hard job when he is of a mind to fire back at you with more and larger cannon) but then what?

Also, when supplies aren't infinite it will cost a fortune to kite and de-mast larger ships, you would need a hold full of shot and power leaving little option for anything more. Added to this it will all weigh you down making it more difficult to get into position to take on such a foe.

A proper repair system where sails, mast and hull repairs were all separate entities (separate stores) would further remedy this as you could repair sails for as long as you want providing you have the materials. Mast repairs was always a slow and fairly ineffective process.

 

 

Just touching on a few of your points...

 

light frigate can't effectively damage SOL's hull, specially with long range shooting, but she can safely and pretty effective damage SOL's masts comparing effectivness of harm SOL's with frigates even such small one as cerberus is, on hull or on masts, any captain, which have brain, can 100% choose where he will shoot. And it will be masts

victory wasn't able to effectively shoot back being leeward thanks to heel(she is to slow to being in any other position, than leeward, btw) and she must turn front turning front its way to graveyard 

 

 

 

These situations with SOL vs frigate aren't going to be so common I would imagine, it just wouldn't be worth the risk of losing your ship taking on a SOL that you have little chance of defeating. A light frigate would just flee and rightly so.

 

 

A) its not good because it replace charge as viable option, which turns into suicide in large fights, if your enemy smart enough to kite with demasting heavy ships permanently (its not take to much brain to get it). 1 focus = 1-2 masts fall on trafalgar. Wasting repairs on sails means loosing actual hull untill you sunk, because each repair its your HP in one or another way. We have wind changes and speed difference, which in some moment of game is real and only one reason to decide charge. Charge isn't only one win option, thrust me. It can be beaten just with hull damage on charging enemy just like it was in Potbs, not with demast kite.

 

This is a problem with the repair system as I mention above a truer system would help resolve this no end.

 

 

B ) your fleet will find himself in worse position ever, when enemy goes into deadzone for your cannons and still will shoot your ships from there thanks to heel. Retreating counter to wind direction is pain also.

 

 

This was always the case, though you would be more able to skip shots over the water firing from windward (this would be awesome BTW) effectivley increasing range and mitigating the heel problems to some extent.
 

 

E) in real life no one use windward position as best and do not kite enemy to the death.

 

 

This is not true, the French preferred (or were instructed) to fight from leeward for these very reasons and more. They would often use chain and bar shot to damage sails and rigging. This was a valid tactic and should remain so. It just wont be such a problem in open world.

 

 

You're right to be upset at the current system, but it's not necessarily the masts that's the problem. There are a whole host of reasons why it's the best tactic for smaller ships vs larger ones at the moment, most of which will be void in OW. Just remember that this system is temporary and solely for testing the mechanics and not so much behaviour and tactics. Thank god!

 

[maturin]

If mast repairs didn't illogically deprive us of hull repairs (effectively reducing our ability to take damage by 100%), this wouldn't be such a problem.

 

I can certainly see armor rating for lower mast sections as justified. 9 and 12 pounders should barely dent a 3-foot-thick mast at long range. Upper mast sections, especially topgallant masts, should be very weak. But it's rather unusual to hit these masts anyhow.

[Johny Reb]

Yeah but the French kept loosing.

[maturin]

I don't think the French would have won if they had aimed at the hull, do you?

 

On rare occasions where French gunners had the necessary experience, shooting for the rigging was a very successful tactic, resulting in a disabled British fleet that was helpless to prevent the French from achieving their goals.

 

There is an excellent essay about British triumphalism and the question of the weather gauge, with an example of the French leeward position paying dividends, but I can't find it.

 

Edit: Of course, the French never did 'kite.' They fired from leeward at effective range. No silly S-curves to keep out of reach of British guns.

[Preserved_Killick]

I'm not sure how the hit-boxes work with shooting down masts and how the game decides a cannon ball breaks the mast but I would think it should require a cannon ball hitting roughly the same spot of a mast X amount of times before it actually breaks all the way through.  A lower thicker mast might require 3 shots to the exact spot to chip away while something thinner like a top mast or royal mast might only require one or two dead-on hits.  This would require keeping track of hit locations on each mast and I'm not sure if that's already happening or not.

[Austrum]

I think this is a perfectly viable tactic and one used fairly extensively in real life.  No Problem found.

[Reki]

 

These situations with SOL vs frigate aren't going to be so common I would imagine, it just wouldn't be worth the risk of losing your ship taking on a SOL that you have little chance of defeating. A light frigate would just flee and rightly so.

 

Im talking about mixed group fight as it is now. This kind of tactic can be apllyied fair enough to cerberus-constitution case instead of trincomalee-victory. it will work just same. Open Sea its definitely right place to see mixed fights. And then when we have it, adding no matter what calibre cannonballs to whole mass of flying iron does job. More balls - more chances to hit. on far distance its hard to hit light frigate. It just small and moves sides to quick.  Moreover it will be not so high damage thanks to range. But even now these little ships survive to much under sols fire in close quarters. they can't damage hull almost, but can help damage masts with a lot greater effectivness. It just what about i say - to low range damage on hull makes demasting a lot better choice for those ships with low calibre guns. I agree that adding weight limit to ammo can fix it in some way, but i guess we are to far for this part and even further to tuning how it will work to balance things.

 

p.s. saw today as enemy party shooting our surprise. there was constitution, trincomalee and cerberus in their team. They decide to shoot my const masts at start, then switched to our surprise and first volley of enemy constitution destroyed surprise central mast upper section just with 1 ball hit. He lost 10% speed with this. 

[Reki]

I think this is a perfectly viable tactic and one used fairly extensively in real life.  No Problem found.

- C) do same to enemy

- C) scourge of gameplay

 

sure it is viable tactic

[MesserJocke]

If you have a battle with only 1 1st rate its the only way for the other team to have atleast a chance. Can`t see a problem with demasting.

[Prater]

There isn't a problem with demasting as a tactic, however it is agreed upon by many to be way too easy.  Each mast needs to have armor thickness just like the hull does so that long range shots have a harder time causing damage.  Up close it is fine, far away is where the problem is.  In my opinion they need to increase dispersion so that part of a close up broadside also goes above the deck and hits rigging, increasing the chance at close range of demastings.  The lower section HP, even though HP was increased by 50% awhile ago, still needs to be about 3x or more what it is now.  That section of the mast should be really hard to break, but we still do on occasion have the entire mast fall even when the majority of the shots hit above the lower section.

 

Masts also need to be stronger all around on different ships.  The masts on the Santi look to be like a Redwood tree.  They are extremely thick and tall.  Shots should have a really hard time against her lower sections.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Prater

[SirWili]

We need sails ripping themselves from stormy winds, masts which rip themselves off from decks because of the stress while ramming other ships. We need less accurate cannons (600 meters might be close to reality), we need effective grapeshots. But we dont need armored masts.

Just my 2cent on the subject.

[Taki1980]

Shooting masts is right now the only option for a smaller ship to take out a bigger one with some luck (if skill is roughly equal). Maybe that changes when new DMG Model with Grape and maybe Crewmanagment will come

[Meraun]

Well i have seen other Post of you on this Topic so i kept an eye on it.

 

I have played around 77h Naval Action soo far, including Trafalger.

 

i have never seen much demasting, i fact in my last trafalger only one out of 16 Sol's lost a mast..

So i cant really see your point, in my view, demasting is very very rare

[Prater]

Demasting is not rare at all.

[Sir Cloudsley-Shovell]

In reality the French tended to go for the Masts and Rigging first but the RN went for the Hull and Gundecks.

[Ghroznak]

For some weird reason my Cerberus was thrown into a fight with only SOL's (Santi, Vic and Bells).

 

The other team also had a Cerberus (or maybe it was Surprise). Either way, he was out of my range the whole fight until we all got very close but then I couldn't get to their frig anyways (not without sailing infront of an entire enemy SOL broadside... which would be, you know, smart?).

 

So what can I do with my Cerberus when my only targets are SOL's?

 

I even parked behind the Santi, point blank range, double shot 9 pndr cannons and fired every single cannon with Spacebar so they all went right in the windows at the back of the Santi. I did almost no damage and killed at most 10 crew from full 13 cannons of doubleshot.

 

The only thing I can do with Cerberus is either /quit and hope next battle is more fun... or I can stern-camp a SOL and shoot only at their masts (and not talking about chain shots, but ball or doubles to break mast). This is the only thing a frigate can do in a SOL fight.

 

So will I continue to shoot masts? Of course. Or do you prefer players just /quit matches instead?

[Modern Major General]

If your caught with your pants down then you deserve it OP. 

 

I see no problem with plucky little ships going for your masts if you did not take an escort to shoo them away. 

 

Its all about what you took into a battle and how it was used; how you positioned yourself and how you managed to co-ordinate with whatever sea worthy skills you have in your fleet, squadron or whatever. 

 

If some little boat is happily sniping your masts then most likely something has gone wrong for how the engagement has played out to your side; which could be a number of factors including quite easily blaming yourself for allowing said sprat to get into a good firing solution.

 

Strike your colours sir if its too much to bear.

[SirWili]

For some weird reason my Cerberus was thrown into a fight with only SOL's (Santi, Vic and Bells).

 

The other team also had a Cerberus (or maybe it was Surprise). Either way, he was out of my range the whole fight until we all got very close but then I couldn't get to their frig anyways (not without sailing infront of an entire enemy SOL broadside... which would be, you know, smart?).

 

So what can I do with my Cerberus when my only targets are SOL's?

 

I even parked behind the Santi, point blank range, double shot 9 pndr cannons and fired every single cannon with Spacebar so they all went right in the windows at the back of the Santi. I did almost no damage and killed at most 10 crew from full 13 cannons of doubleshot.

 

The only thing I can do with Cerberus is either /quit and hope next battle is more fun... or I can stern-camp a SOL and shoot only at their masts (and not talking about chain shots, but ball or doubles to break mast). This is the only thing a frigate can do in a SOL fight.

 

So will I continue to shoot masts? Of course. Or do you prefer players just /quit matches instead?

I remember how you complained in the chat, still you chose to shoot at santi instead of victorys or at several bellonas which had lost all or nearly all of their armor. You were too angry to listen to us when we tried to mention about that...

Anyway, the situation should be improved with the more accurate damage model. If I have understood it correctly, you should be able to shoot thru the gunports, glass should be glass and in general there should be more weakpoinst to shoot at with the small guns.

[Reki]

 

I see no problem with plucky little ships going for your masts if you did not take an escort to shoo them away. 

 

Its all about what you took into a battle and how it was used; how you positioned yourself and how you managed to co-ordinate with whatever sea worthy skills you have in your fleet, squadron or whatever. 

 

If some little boat is happily sniping your masts then most likely something has gone wrong for how the engagement has played out to your side; which could be a number of factors including quite easily blaming yourself for allowing said sprat to get into a good firing solution.

/facepalm

 

Escort can't shoo away. Escort can't do enything just because there is no way to prevent mast shooting, mate. All that we talking is ranged demasting with cannonballs which goes in focus fire way and on range where hull damage is uneffective, even in case of first rate fire on frigate. Maybe space-time barrier could prevent mast snipping from max distance, but this skills still in work.

 

The only thing I can do with Cerberus is either /quit and hope next battle is more fun... or I can stern-camp a SOL and shoot only at their masts (and not talking about chain shots, but ball or doubles to break mast). This is the only thing a frigate can do in a SOL fight.

 

So will I continue to shoot masts? Of course. Or do you prefer players just /quit matches instead?

well, frigate shouldn't be able to harm SOL much. Best thing frigate can do its surrender, but still you can shoot SOL's stern if you not have frigate enemy to fight with. And you will deal some damage on rate ship too, shooting in hull. Even if your enemy SOL prefer sink your cerberus instead of your SOL ally ship, he will take disadvantage, since hes goal is sinking SOL, which is real danger, not little friggy. He will spend at least 4 volley to you instead of your sol ally. You should be proud with that passive help too. But if he won't sink you, i'm afraid, going demasted (and it will be no doubt) can cost him a lot. So he will chose to sink small friggy over his real opponent and in this case, its nonsence =\

[Ghroznak]

I remember how you complained in the chat, still you chose to shoot at santi instead of victorys or at several bellonas which had lost all or nearly all of their armor. You were too angry to listen to us when we tried to mention about that...

Anyway, the situation should be improved with the more accurate damage model. If I have understood it correctly, you should be able to shoot thru the gunports, glass should be glass and in general there should be more weakpoinst to shoot at with the small guns.

 

I was shooting the Santi because;

 

1) Your frigate was out of gun range until the point when both fleets converged and ended in a furball. If I had closed range I would be only ship in range of your SOL's... and gee I wonder who they would have started pounding then...

2) Once we were in a furball I would have to cross the broadside of your SOL's to get a firing solution, which would be suicide with the unfathomable amounts of armor on a Cerberus.

3) I had a good stern position on him where he was sitting dead in the water (little did I know that point blank shot into stern with double-shot 9 pounders would do less damage than throwing wet noodles at an Abrams tank).

 

And yes I was frustrated because any contribution to the whole fight would, at most, be a duel against another frigate. Which makes you wonder why frigs are even joining the PvP considering they aren't ships of the line anyways, but that's a different discussion.

 

Only thing I learned from that entire fight is that Cerberus is near useless (unless you go all carronade maybe) against SOL's and only thing you can do is shoot at masts (hence why I responded in this thread). I tried shooting the stern, and obviously that experience gave me sound proof that even stern shots on SOL's is a waste of time with 9 pounders.

[RAMJB]

I'll just chime in and say:

as soon as chainshot cutting off stays helps bringing masts down, sure, add some armor to them.

 

In the meantime, I think it's fine as it is. Since the mast buff demasts are pretty rare (that I've seen), and the fact that cutting rigging has no effect on demasting (that I've seen either) means that yeah, maybe demasting with ball is a tad too easy. But is more than countered by the fact that using rig-cutting shot helps nothing towards that goal...while it should go a long ways towards it.

[maturin]

) I had a good stern position on him where he was sitting dead in the water (little did I know that point blank shot into stern with double-shot 9 pounders would do less damage than throwing wet noodles at an Abrams tank).

I don't know what you were doing wrong, but my team once captured a Bellona in a few cutters and brigs. A single snow can easily knock all ST's stern armor off.