Please don't make us sink everything

[OTMatt]

I kind of like the idea of making it difficult to sink the ships as a way to simply make a battle longer and more enjoyable. Probably the most disappointing outcome in a duel is to lose your ship in 2-3 broadsides or at the very least losing the mast early on. Just add in some surrender mechanics please, surrendering a portion of the loot sounds like a fair deal.

 

 

if you do strike your colors,maybe a standard payment of a percentage of all your ammunition and goods on board might fix the problem, and after the battel all ships involved are dispersed and cannot see each other position may help,,be good money for a man of war to imposed the threat of distruction on a ship that cant get away yet not haveing to sink it,..and maybe some penaltys for thoughtless fights or just bullying ships that have no possiibility to win,,

 

Repairing his ship and replacing the guns and crew should eventually wear out his funds over time for all that pointless destruction. Perhaps Naval Warships get discounts over privateers and pirates though but either way it should cost a player should he sink every noob he finds.

[Destraex]

the game should be more about,,econ,,adventure,,and exploration,,there should be plenty of ship wreak gold and bounty to find out there at the far side of the world..leass about pvp and sinking someones ship,,damage and cost of repairs should easily make any captain think twice about combat,,this is how i understand the story line is we all make the game what it is,,we could have sailing races for prize money,be a ship maker or a gold miner,dident see anything that we had to be on any side and forced to fight any one.

 

    anther issue is how many accounts can one person have and will he be able to play them all at the same time,,people on a team speak can use this for recon and know where others are and bring the forces to bear to defeat them..so limited accounts would be a good thing i believe,,and unless they can play on 2 computers at the same time that they will not have the ability to duel box.cant stop all the crap some people will do to gain an edge but you can make it real hard for them to do it.

 

                  if you do strike your colors,maybe a standard payment of a percentage of all your ammunition and goods on board might fix the problem, and after the battel all ships involved are dispersed and cannot see each other position may help,,be good money for a man of war to imposed the threat of distruction on a ship that cant get away yet not haveing to sink it,..and maybe some penaltys for thoughtless fights or just bullying ships that have no possiibility to win,,

 

I  sincerely hope this is not another simple pirate economy game. I want to fight my ship sarrr, not sail around taking advantage of poor people. Besides I don't have time to wander around for hours or to grind.

[totalspoon]

Naval Action is touted as a hyper realistic ship sim with the forums full of discussions on how best to tack and minuscule errors in ship models, but in video after video that I’ve seen, the action comes down to one ship sinking another with gunfire. This is hopelessly unrealistic.

 

As an example, between 1700 and 1800, in dozens of large naval battle with hundreds of ships of the line involved, as far as I can tell, only a single Ship-of-the-Line was sunk by gunfire.  This was the French 74 ‘Vengeur du Peuple’ ("Avenger of the People") which became tangled with HMS Brunswick during the Battle of Glorius 1^st June, 1794.

 

To quote From Naval History by James P163 (taken from wikipedia)

“Vengeur fired an entire broadside at point-blank range, but was then unable to fire her main batteries again, the ships being so close as to prevent French gunners from ramming ammunition into their guns; in contrast, British gunners used rammers with semi-rigid rope handles instead of wooden handles, and were able to reload and maintain a sustained fire, riddling Vengeur with holes. The fight went on for four hours, until Brunswick, after shattering the rudder of Vengeur to prevent her from manoeuvring, separated at 12:45”

 

Even then, with the crew completely out of control, with no one manning the pumps and no damage control being undertaking, it took till between 18:00 and 18:30 for the Vengeur to final sink.

 

Historically, a SOTL had more chance of catching fire and exploding than it did of sinking from gunfire.

 

At Trafalgar, where 60 ships of the line battled it out, with the allies loosing 22 (21 captured and one lost to fire/explosion), not one single SOTL was sunk.

 

Even lesser ships, when attacked by a ship of equal size, could take remarkable punishment without sinking. HMS Serapis (900tons BM), while it desperately tried to fend of boarders, fired it cannons down through the bottom of the hull of the Bonhomme Richards (a converted merchant, 1000 tons BM) for hours in an attempt to sink her and failed (though she did sink the following day after being abandoned).

 

So what did decide battles? Why did ships carry so many guns if not to sink the enemy? Simple; Guns were used to destroy an enemy’s ships ability to stop it being boarded.

 

The British & Americans did this by firing into the hull of the ship, destroying guns & men, causing confusion & chaos and bringing down masts (masts go to the keel of a ship – shooting into the hull could and did bring down masts). With enough men dead and enough confusion in the leadership, any ship can be taken

The French & Spanish attempted to do this by shooting for masts and rigging, as once it can’t manoeuvre, a ship can be raked from safety until all powers of defence are gone, and then easily taken.  

 

However, in most cases, once a ship lost its ability to defend itself, it struck its colours, the threat of boarding being as effective as boarding itself.

 

Look at the famous frigate actions of the War of 1812. Not one frigate was sunk by gunfire. In every case, the loosing frigate was taken by actual boarding, or dismasted, leaving it open to raking and boarding at the victors pleasure.

 

If Naval Action wants to be taken seriously, it needs to get rid of the Hollywood-esc sinkings and make boarding (or more importantly, the threat of boarding) the decisive factor in naval battles.

 

Thankyou for taking the time to read this.

 

Spoon

 

TL:DR Gunfire didn’t sink ships. It was the threat of boarding that decided battles.

[Baggywrinkle]

A lot this. Though NA has never claimed, nor achieved, anything like hyper realism. However, it tries a lot harder to get some things right and is the best age of sail game I've seen

Incentivising surrender has been suggested and explored on several occasions, but have yet to hear official word...

Baggy

[NorthernWolves]

It is fight till you sink in the sea trials because it is about hunting for bugs. There is no reason or mechanism to surrender right now, but this should change in the full release. There are some discussions going on about this in other threads, but pointing out historical realities is very welcome on the forums, good job.

[Ligatorswe]

I agree that there should be a mecanism that allows you to surrender, inte future. And that you personally would be better off if surrendering, than if sinking your ship. But your "team" would suffer more because the enemies now have an extra ship to use.

[totalspoon]

Hi Gents,

 

Ligatorswe, I don't think you quite got the point of my post.

 

When Captain Dacres, standing on the smashed mastless deck of HMS Guerriere was asked by the American Lieutenant if he surrendered to USS Constitution, his options were not surrender or sink. His options were surrender now and save his men, or wait as Constitution raked his decks till there was no one left standing, and then seize her by boarding. As we know, Captain Dacres famously responded "Well, Sir, I don't know. Our mizzen mast is gone, our fore and main masts are gone - I think on the whole you might say we have struck our flag."

 

Even with her 24lb guns, Constitution lacked the firepower to sink the much smaller Guerriere outright. Boarding or raking-then-boarding were Captain Hulls only two options (unless he wanted to sail away). Dacres understood that and surrendered.

[RAMJB]

Even with her 24lb guns, Constitution lacked the firepower to sink the much smaller Guerriere outright. Boarding or raking-then-boarding were Captain Hulls only two options (unless he wanted to sail away). Dacres understood that and surrendered.

 

You fail to understand several facts about Naval Action.

 

-.It's not "hyper-realistic". Its very realistic and immersive but there are several areas of the game that are tuned more for gameplay than for full realism. The theme of the game is indeed make a very immersive game that makes you feel you're there, but there are indeed some gameplay concessions. The beauty of it is that none, or very few, really detract from the immersion and realistic feeling of the game, so you end up with something rather easy to learn but hard to master, immensely addictive and fun to play, while keeping the realistic flavor intact.

 

-The damage model is far from complete. Just in the last update raking fire damage was upped, demasting is now much more viable than before, and several adjustements were done. I expect a lot of bits of the damage model to change as the Sea Trials go on. What you see now is not the damage model we'll have for release 100% guaranteed.

 

-Currently we're testing battle mechanics and games are team deathmatch. For a game involving several ships per side not to take the hours one such engagement would take in real life something must be done. There are no surrender mechanics yet so the only way you'll get an enemy ship out of action is sinking it. If real life damage models were in place for sinkings each battle would take several hours to end, which detracts from the testing (in testing you want to have as many games played as possible to collect a large sample of gameplay to analyze).

 

-With the current DM there is only one way you'll sink: Flooding. Currently there are two ways you'll get flooding: getting enough underwater leaks so the inrush of water overcomes your pump and the damage control efforts of your crew, and getting your armor severely shot up, at which point flooding comes in so fast that there's nothing that can stop it. Only the second can be labelled as "relatively unrealistic" and quite probably we'll see some changes to it in the future.

 

-Finally, the theme of the battles is "sink or be sunk". There's no incentive for capturing ships nor boarding actions, which is precisely the focus that real life engagements had. As a result you see players massively focused on killing the enemy ship as fast as possible, not in doing damage to reduce it's combat ability and crew and to render it slow enough for a boarding action to succeed. Experienced players will intentionally aim at your waterline to put as many holes on you as possible to sink you as fast as possible. Round or double shot is the standard shot to be fired, with chain being only used to slow the enemy enough to make it an easier target, grape almost never is used, when in real life such less-ship-damaging shot was much more commonly used because in real life the focus was on capturing enemies, not sinking them. Player effort is sinking, not capturing, and as a result, and mixed with the current damage mechanics, sinkings are much more likely.

 

-In the real life combats, again the focus wasn't on sinking the enemy but on forcing them to strike colors or board them. It's very hard to figure out how hard it really was for ships to sink when captains of the era rarely tried to achieve such an objective.

 

 

 

As a result your complains about the damage model, while founded as they don't really adhere to what you could see in real life, should keep in mind the stage the game is at, the purpose of this sea trials, and the fact that players don't look forward capturing enemy ships but sinking them. When open world is out I expect player focus to shift severely towards capturing enemies and/or forcing their surrender while not sinking them, and thus putting less focus on waterline hits and max-damage roundshot firing to include a lot more of grape and chainshot to force other players to accept a surrender or to make them vulnerable for boarding.

[admin]

To Captains

On death and bravery
One thing that limit realism in combat in all games is fear of death. People don't like to die in real life. And this changes the mechanics. You can't force it, unless full permadeath is implemented. Also while we can provide tools for captains to exhibit bravery and courage in ship to ship action, we cannot give such tools In boarding combat; it's impossible so we downplay it.

On surrendering
We are of course aware that sometimes goals of age of sail combat were to board, not to destroy, because of prizes. Hardcore games like ARMA or red orchestra do not cater to encirclement or mass surrender mechanics which is prevalent in real infantry combat. Nobody demands this from them. People don't play computer games to surrender, they play them to be a hero.

On sinking
Java sank after Constitution encounter, many allied fleet ships sank after Trafalgar.
In real life ships, that were fighting to the death - always sank or exploded. If your opponent is willing to fight to the death (he can't really die and this increases his desire to fight to the death) you will have to force board or sink him/her. Permadeath can solve this.

+ Time for our usual statement. Naval action is not a sim. It a realistic action game.

......
I had a fight yesterday, I was engaging two English Leda class frigates in a super frigate. I damaged one of them heavily, another one had repaired and returned to fighting. But two ledas had enough firepower - my ship was sinking, one more minute and I would have gone under. One of the opponents was arrogant enough to come close, I boarded him and won. Just like captain blood from a Sabatini novel, I saw my old ship going down bringing down dead comrades. My crew was just enough to have good controls of a repaired enemy Leda and I sank a second Englishman. Opponents were in awe, I was surprised myself such things are possible in Naval Action.


Ps some people have even learnt that you can play dead )) hiding crew, dropping sails when submerged a bit. I did not shoot at a brig thinking it was dead, and it returned in 10 mins and raked me.

[admin]

 

 

At Trafalgar,not one single SOTL was sunk.

 

 

Neptuno 80 guns, sank in 2 days

Rayo 100 guns, sank in 3 days

San francisco 80 guns, sank in 2 days

Santisima Trinidad, 136 guns, sank in 2 days

Redoutable, 74 guns, sank in 2 days

Interpide 74 guns, blew up in 3 days by crew

Achille, blew up during battle

Berwick, 74 guns, sank in 2 days

Monarca,74 guns, burnt in 3 days

San Agusting, 74 guns, abandoned and burnt in 6 days

 

Additionally many SOLs were wrecked, because they were hard to control or masts were weakened by gunfire. 

 

 

 

Look at the famous frigate actions of the War of 1812. Not one frigate was sunk by gunfire. 

 

HMS Java sank after battling USS Constitution despite all efforts to save her. There are many other examples like that. 

[Prater]

I had a fight a week or two ago where I was in a constitution fighting a Trincomole and several smaller craft.  After sinking the Trin, I boarded a lynx and easily won.  However my ship was sinking so I switched to the lynx and then fought a cutter and lynx a bit until I sunk.  That was an awesome match.

In several other matches I have boarded the enemy, especially when I am going to sink.  People usually get upset with me when I do this because it stops damage progression.  Currently (as far as I know) we aren't rewarded for killing crew so there isn't any point to boarding or using grape shot when we "level up" by causing sail or hull damage.  The only time it is worthwhile is if a larger ship is going to be sunk by several smaller ships.  The larger ship needs to board the smaller ships so as to quickly remove ships from combat because it is almost impossible for a smaller crew to defeat a larger crew and it doesn't matter what tactic is chosen.  However, if the crews are nearly even, boarding actions are nerve wracking as you have to attempt to guess what the other captain is going to tell his crew to do and you have no indication until the same moment when both of your tactics are revealed. If you choose the wrong thing, it could mean losing the boarding action because you lose just enough crew to tip the balance against you.

I am guessing crew moral and quality needs to be added, otherwise it is impossible for smaller crews to win against larger crews.  However, such things don't really fit into the sea trials/deathmatch style match.

[maturin]

One thing that limit realism in combat in all games is fear of death. People don't like to die in real life. And this changes the mechanics. You can't force it, unless full permadeath is implemented.

Have you read any of my (periodic) posts on implementing ship surrenders without ever removing player choice? I try to sidestep that limitation with my suggestions:

Let's not have automated surrender, but instead model catastrophic morale failures among crew. Instead of slowly sinking, your reload and yard turn rate plummets. At which point you either flee for your life, surrender, or get boarded and taken.

Because if 99% of battles end in sinking, this is bad from both a realism and gameplay perspective. It's predictable and boring; it hamstrings any sort of prize-taking economy. I know that sinking will always be more common in the game than it was in reality. But capture needs to be a viable alternative. This much was already promised in the Damage 3.0 topic. Different routes to victory.

As I constantly state, IMHO a battle which results in most of a defeated fleet scattering in all directions, being hunted down one by one (if the victors want to take prizes, rather than drive their foes away) is much interesting and more fun.

Hardcore games like ARMA or red orchestra do not cater to encirclement or mass surrender mechanics which is prevalent in real infantry combat. Nobody demands this from them. People don't play computer games to surrender, they play them to be a hero.

Arma 2 ships with a surrender button. The most popular single mod ever created for the series includes handcuffs and prisoner functionality.

As for the vanilla AI, both fleeing (morale failures) and surrender are implemented.

Neptuno 80 guns, sank in 2 days

Rayo 100 guns, sank in 3 days

San francisco 80 guns, sank in 2 days

Santisima Trinidad, 136 guns, sank in 2 days

Redoutable, 74 guns, sank in 2 days

Interpide 74 guns, blew up in 3 days by crew

Achille, blew up during battle

Berwick, 74 guns, sank in 2 days

Monarca,74 guns, burnt in 3 days

San Agusting, 74 guns, abandoned and burnt in 6 days

The topic is 'Sinking by Gunfire.' None of these ships would have succumbed had a severe storm not followed the battle.

[Freebooter]

The OP is correct.  Not a single SOL was sunk at Trafalgar.  Sinking after the battle is a different matter altogether, and I am disappointed to see that this point has been missed in some cases.

As far as the game will go any ships sinking during a battle are automatically lost; they cannot therefore be captured or taken as a prize.  The taking of prizes was a major part of sea-warfare in this period.  The current situation where beaten ships sink in battle as a result of gunfire is one that I hope will be replaced by a more realistic one.  Or should I say "convincing" rather than realistic, since the counter to the latter is to say this is only a game.  Let's not be so pessimistic about this game, some very good work has been done here so far and it could become a really great game.  Where we cannot be realistic because of the limitations of a game we can always strive for authenticity.

If they have not already done so, I urge the Devs (and others) to think forward to the part of the game where battles determine the success of a faction and will have a bearing on strategy and the balance of power.  During a battle struck or surrendered ships are temporarily lost to their side.  The victors will capture any ships that surrendered and will have their own ships (that surrendered) restored to the fleet.  Some vessels may subsequently be lost and some condemned.  In some cases the ships can be sold and the money be shared accordingly.  That sort of aspect to the game would enhance it and help in evoking the warfare of the period.

[Balck]

Have to say that based on the tone with which mr. TotalSpoon chose to conduct himself (which I think was completely inappropiate btw), I understand the reaction by Game Labs on this one.

 

When'ever someone pulls a "do as I say, or else!" they need to be shut down promptly, taught some manners and warned that such behavior is not tolerated here.

I concur with Sir Cunningham.

 

Even if I agree with the underlying premise of his post, that capture should be more common than sinking, the way the gentleman went about it crossed the line. As Mr. Walsh, myself and others have pointed out, this is an issue we hope and expect the development team to address in the future.  It has been brought up many times before.  A simple search or merely looking through the forums would demonstrate this.  

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/1941-damage-cannons-repairs-firing-aiming-suggestions-and-feedback/?p=44609

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/1941-damage-cannons-repairs-firing-aiming-suggestions-and-feedback/?p=44610

 

Moreover, the developers of this game are more than happy to interact with and listen to their players/testers.  The manner in which he broached the subject was utterly uncalled for and counterproductive.  As such, the repercussions are well within reason.  Take a week off to reflect and come back with a more cogent, less belligerent, argument.  There are many who agree with the premise and point but really don't care for how you went about it.

[admin]

On the topic of sinking. several points

• You already can de-mast and board. Using grape shot in raking can turn an enemy ship into derelict - 2 direct broadsides into stern from a super frigate at close range destroys all crew and makes enemy throw the white flag (probably needs nerfing a bit). In reality there were lot of cases of ship destruction during combat (due to fire or unrepairable damage to hull). In game currently if you are trying to board, and enemy is trying to sink you you will probably lose, if you don't have necessary tools or skills. We can't force players to play by a book and always fight to capture. I personally sail to destroy, its more fun. But i board when the situation allows, or I do need that ship. 

 

• We have tested the no-sinking in summer in one of the internal patches. There was no closure unfortunately, ships were losing cannons, and crew, and by the end of battles turned into slow hulks making the game boring - almost unplayable. There were no boarding then, but you would not be able to close as you were also demasted and slow turning after sustained combat.

 

• Time compression abstraction. It took 5 weeks for Columbus to reach Caribbean. Let's assume in game time it is 2 hours of sailing in the empty ocean. In this case time is speed up 348x times. 29 days*24hours*60mins/120mins. Trafalgar major action lasted for 3 days. Or just 12 minutes in compressed time (math could be wrong but you get the idea). This means that ship sinking during a 1 hour battle is no longer very unrealistic. 

 

• Game inflation, could also be an issue. In many cases real life captain did not decide if he gets to keep the ship or not. Admiralty took the ship and gave the prize money to the captain. Thus whether you have the ship on the map or not could be a bit less relevant in the game environment (unless you are the pirate and KOS for everyone anyway).

 

• Surrender mechanics right now is useless because there is no cost of repairs. We want to make surrenders important and it will come to play at a later stage of development. Surrendering players could for example have much lower repair bills, and will surrender a lot more than now. Some will still fight to the death.

 

• Player control is very important to us. We believe it is very bad design when control is taken away from a player. If the player wants to fight to the death, why take this opportunity away from him? This could also increase a number of ships sank. It is a game, you don't have wife and kids to return to and you don't have the strong connection to your crew trying to save them from the perils of the deep blue sea. 

 

• Ship value. Right now the ship is just unlocked, you did not buy it. Once it has a price and once you have to earn money to buy it, mechanics will probably change. People will destroy major threats and will try to capture valuable targets. But if game inflation is very high, then again, ships will have no value and people will just sink them to get the objective faster (e.g. capture the port). 

 

Basically - inflation, player control, ship value and ship cost are all interconnected with the outcome of the battle and need to be considered together. We are not trying to defend current outcomes of battles. There is just no motivation to capture or save the ship = thus players choose the method that is most fun and fast. 

 

Also - it is alpha we are willing to experiment and we will add this topic to the list of test we will do together. 

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Very well stated Admin.  Thank you for the in-depth review of the various mechanics that were tried and that you have planned.

[SeethDark]

I would prefer to see oponent ship sinking than surrender;), its just more fun, if u go watch action movie in cinema theres no complaining that explosion looks unreal, or that Rambo in real life would be killed in first 5mins of movie. In fact i think the ships could be even sinking with more holywood cinematics, instead of geting slowly under water verticaly, maybe colapsing on one side and crashing masts on water, kind like this, ..but thats just my opinion, Real life aspects are boring sometimes, thats why we have games;)

 

..and one more question, ..what if someone will surrender but the other no accept it and still sink the ship with all the crew?, will there be some court for war crimes??

[maturin]

Quite so. The problem with the damage model is not the lack of realism; it is the absence of prizes.

[maturin]

You already can de-mast and board. Using grape shot in raking can turn an enemy ship into derelict - 2 direct broadsides into stern from a super frigate at close range destroys all crew and makes enemy throw the white flag (probably needs nerfing a bit). In reality there were lot of cases of ship destruction during combat (due to fire or unrepairable damage to hull). In game currently if you are trying to board, and enemy is trying to sink you you will probably lose, if you don't have necessary tools or skills. We can't force players to play by a book and always fight to capture. I personally sail to destroy, its more fun. But i board when the situation allows, or I do need that ship.

Currently no one tries to dismast and board in an even fight. Why not tweak the damage model to facilitate this?

The hit boxes could be rearranged. Hits to the gundecks cause gun, crew and mast loss only. Hits between gundeck and waterline cause flooding.

And if we have to dismast to capture, that makes the pirate's life pretty frustrating. All your pretty prizes will come already crippled.

[totalspoon]

Hi Gents,

My apologies as my first post did not go down well. It was written as an enthusiastic and dynamic piece in article style to try and start a friendly debate. It was not taken as such by many people and for that I am sorry.

I stated “At Trafalgar, where 60 ships of the line battled it out, with the allies loosing 22 (21 captured and one lost to fire/explosion), not one single SOTL was sunk.”

This was implied to be false, but I stand behind this statement. On the day of battle, not one SOTL struck its colours or ceased combat operations because gunfire had caused it to take on excess water. The ships listed by Sir Admin were lost in the storm which followed (except Achille which burnt/exploded as I had already mentioned).

It was also implied I lied when I stated “Look at the famous frigate actions of the War of 1812. Not one frigate was sunk by gunfire.”

Sir Admin stated “HMS Java sank after battling USS Constitution despite all efforts to save her. There are many other examples like that.”

While this is probably just a simple case of conflicting sources, my sources state that HMS Java stuck her colours to USS Constitution as she had lost all masts except the lowest section of her main and Captain Bainbridge had placed the Constitution across her bows ready to rake her. Believing further resistance was futile, her surviving senior Lieutenant Henry Chads surrendered her. Depending on which source you read, she was burnt one or two days later, her magazine still being dry, she exploded.

I hope these issues were just a case of miscommunications.

Spoon

[thomas aagaard]

Well, Iam sure we can debate the different details... But the core point is that ships was not that often sunk by gunfire alone during a battle... unless it cough fire and blew up.

They where usually lost later to storms...

 

On simple temporary solution could be:
When a ship take 100% flooding the ship don't sink but strikes the colors. All the remaining crew is placed on "survival" and try to keep the ship from sinking. (if you didn't have the crew on survival they might be able to save the ship)

 

If the flood gets to 110% it sinks. (or some other fitting number)

The crew repair and pump to the extent that they can keep the ship from sinking.

 

This would not change the game for us since ships can take the same damage.. But we would actually get ships that strikes the colors...
(if the crew was not on "Survival" and in this setup all the crew should do would be repair/pump... normally when you are on survival some still man the sails and guns... )

 

 

In the long run some more detailed system with moral could be made.. or what ever plan their is for allowing surrender... and making it a good idea to do.

 

Adding the option to board a surrendered ship (from some distance) and put a prize crew on it to help could be added later. (I expect more crew help in the repair/pump rate?)

[Johny Reb]

@totalspoon....

 

The ships sinking in the storm proves the admins point in my opinion. They sunk because of the severe damage done during the battle. The storm, in and of itself, didn't sink the ships. It obviously contributed to it but that is part of the life of a ship at sea and the ships sinking can't be ignored just because of a storm. They sunk. They sunk because of damage taken during the battle.

 

 

Surrender mechanics right now is useless because there is no cost of repairs. We want to make surrenders important and it will come to play at a later stage of development. Surrendering players could for example have much lower repair bills, and will surrender a lot more than now. Some will still fight to the death.

 

 

This statement concerns me admin. It seems to indicate that once you own a ship you will own it forever and that after a battle you simply need to "repair" it even if it sunk. If this is the case I think its going in the wrong direction. I'm with you in that I hope the loss of a ship isn't as harsh as in Potbs but their must be a true loss mechanic and not just a repair cost. Remove the loss and you remove the emotional high you get from a win and that is what drawls people back to the fight. Thats the problem with WoT. You never loose anything so you never feel that exhilaration with a win. At least not like the exhilaration after a hard fought and won 6v6 in Potbs.

 

My second concern is the economy. What is it based on if not on building ships?

 

Also, the motivation to surrender (as been discussed over and over by the community) can easily be wrapped around the crew and its officers. Surrender, your officers get paroled. Sink, and you loose them to Davy Jones.

[Mazarredo]

Greetings to all.

I am new to the forum because I have not had much time to sign in and participate. First of all, I would like to appeal for captain´s calm and cool blood , because as I am Spanish and on occasion have written something in English unaware that might sound arrogant or rude. The same thing happened to me when reading something.

 

That said, I'd like to find a balance between the two main views in this thread:

Facilitate dismasted ship and damage over crew and cannons while they become more difficult to sink (taking back the feeling of crippling the enemy, but only the feeling), ie, make a boat harder to be sunk (but not impossible), and in exchange force the enemy ship to make every effort to stay afloat, leaving the tasks of combat or otherwise sink and then surrender(when its implemented). 

As you all know, Certain repairs could be made offshore, some even in combat, as you can see in the game. Dismast a prize does not mean that she necessarily have to be towed. Often masts were improvised, so maybe setting 10-15 mins for repairs after the battle and consuming repair material (existing in its hold or previously purchased by the captain of the victorious ship ) is more than enough to return the prize to acceptable conditions. That time could be fun, because enemy ships might appear meanwhile to try to recapture (just an idea).

 

On the point of fighting to death: On certain battles, as in Trafalgar, some SOTL (specially spanish ships) fought to death only for two reasons, honour and buying time to the rest of the fleet. Ie. Santisima Trinidad (It´s Santísima, not Santissima  ) fought many hours surrounded by enemy ships, and only surrendered after loosing many cannons, many crew, his captain being wounded and with heavy flooding and visual contact lost with the rest of the fleet.

 

On the point of surrender: We will have to find balance between surrender too soon (Ie. risk of court-martial and a real setback for the player) and fighting to death ( Ie.Heavy loss of crewmembers, officers and obviously the ship, with a very little chance of survival for the captain)

 

About the Tragfalgar sunken ships, yes they sunk because of their heavy damage (heavier than usual), but without storms, many, if not all of them would have reached Gibraltar or Cádiz. Storm and damage together were the main reason.

Ie. If you have immunodeficiency and die after getting infected with common influenza, you can´t say the flu killed you, it was the combination of your influenza and immunodeficiency what killed you.

 

Those suggestions  in my humble view, will improve realism feeling while not breaking the gameplay or making battles much longer (maybe 5 mins more= 5mins more of fun  ) . Maybe sinking ships is fun for some captains, but in an open world, I think it is excessive.

 

At last but not at least, I have to congratulate Game-Labs for their work, its awesome and it can be (and will be) even better.

 

Mazarredo.

[maturin]

Well, Iam sure we can debate the different details... But the core point is that ships was not that often sunk by gunfire alone during a battle... unless it cough fire and blew up.

They where usually lost later to storms...

On simple temporary solution could be:

When a ship take 100% flooding the ship don't sink but strikes the colors. All the remaining crew is placed on "survival" and try to keep the ship from sinking. (if you didn't have the crew on survival they might be able to save the ship)

If the flood gets to 110% it sinks. (or some other fitting number)

The crew repair and pump to the extent that they can keep the ship from sinking.

This would not change the game for us since ships can take the same damage.. But we would actually get ships that strikes the colors...

This seems completely workable.

Give the player a clearly-defined threshold at which to surrender, or keep fighting for 30 seconds, until reaching the point of no return.

Sort of like bankruptcy protection for buoyancy. When you surrender you can devote all manpower to saving the ship.

But if you have lots of active leaks, a damaged pump, a fire or heavy losses, maybe you will sink anyway.

I know I would never choose to sink. I don't like sinking, and the game is taking away my choice and control by forcing it.

Thoughts?

[RAMJB]

 

Greetings to all.

I am new to the forum because I have not had much time to sign in and participate. First of all, I would like to appeal for captain´s calm and cool blood , because as I am Spanish and on occasion have written something in English unaware that might sound arrogant or rude.

 

 

Get ready to live with it mate. I've had to for 15 years now. Our spaniard directness and straightforwardness doesn't mix well with foreign cultures as they are much less direct. I can tell you . You're not the first spaniard commenting on this problem (and more than probably won't be the last ). We come across as arrogant and rude, when it's just that we're used to speak openly and directly not indending any rudeness at all. And for me even while I tried to correct it and work on it, it still happens .

 

However about this dude, first language or not being english, to come and say "If this game is to be good you must do as I say"...that's not language barrier. At least I don't think it is. Because that's not something one can mistake for arrogant. That -IS- arrogant .